Day Seven
We started off today with a morning of rest and relaxation before taking a light stroll to the BSSC restaurant. Even though we got a late start, it seems like everyone is in high spirits for our visit to the Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub (WEE Hub) today on the Kenyatta University (KU) campus. The Hub is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Before learning about the Hub, we took time to meet the KU website and social media manager. She shared with us how Kenyatta University uses social media to share resources and information with their students and the public. We also discovered that the university has two newspapers, one that is published every three months and is written mainly by the university staff and another research-based paper published in July and December.
We learned from Dr. Pacificah Okemwa, a faculty member (called a lecturer in Kenya) in Gender and Development Studies, about how public health and women’s economic empowerment go hand in hand. Their vision is to build a society free of gender inequities and inequalities with economically empowered women.
We were introduced to the WEE Hub research coordinator, who shared with us his role and the importance of the organization’s work at local, national, and global levels. There are six objectives at the WEE Hub, which has only been around since 2020. The first is to enhance women's engagement and influence in the economy. The second is to increase women's employability through occupational training. The third is to prevent and reduce sexual and gender-based violence by securing women's economic empowerment. (If women are not financially dependent on men or parents, they can afford basic necessities that ensure physical and emotional security. As we have been learning during this study abroad, economic stability is a social determinant of health). The fourth is to construct an index of women's economic empowerment for tracking progress made, primarily by determining the most significant factors for defining “empowerment,” as well as how to weigh these factors against one another, and against other social determinants of health. The fifth is to promote gender-responsive budgeting processes in business and government. The sixth and final objective is to strengthen the Hub’s capacity to conduct policy-driven research and generate data and statistics. To do this the Hub has to partner with Kenya’s Bureau of Statistics so that the information can be verified and used to change policies across the country.
The research done by the Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub was fascinating. There are three themes of research being done: the role of women in public and private sectors; skills training and mentoring; and violence prevention, crisis management, and women’s work. Within those themes, there are different projects. Some examples of the work being done include closing gender gaps in management and leadership positions, determining what economic empowerment looks like, increasing women's access to apprenticeships and transferable skills training, early childhood learning, and the gendered impacts of COVID-19 and Kenyan policy responses.
After our discussion with Professors, we went to the campus coffee shop for coffee, milkshakes, and ice cream. Then we came back to the rooms around 4:30 to say goodbye to Zoe, who was heading home early, and ended the day with a late dinner of pizza at the Garden City Mall located off campus.
By Zoe & Riley
