Habari Yako? How are you doing?
Very far away from each other - half of us in Kenya, the other half in Germany - but still very connected. That's how we felt at the first official meeting of the #ExchangeForEquality project in January 2022. Nairobi calling it was, and we all met as part of a Zoom workshop on gender equality.
Makena Kiruai, speaker of the "Education Meets Development" program, gave us an exciting insight into the topic of SDG5. We discussed the gender pay gap, domestic violence and femicide, and the concept of gender in general and what it means in different cultures. The topic of women in the household and in raising children also generated a lively discussion. For example, John from Kenya said that women are still mainly responsible for children there and men tend not to be involved. He wants to do things differently and be an active father. And what about equality at school and at work? How can it be that in Germany every third woman is a victim of physical and/or sexual violence at least once in her life?
Gender equality is at the heart of the #ExchangeForEquality project, with a particular focus on violence against girls and women. We ask ourselves what we can do to help put an end to this violence - in Germany, in Kenya and worldwide.
In the next few months there will be many online workshops in which we will work on the topic and shape our encounters together. Our goal is to make our own contribution to the UN 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence in November 2022. For this we would like to create digital stories that tell about gender equality in different contexts and reflect our experiences of the planned encounter trips to Nairobi and Berlin. An exciting time is ahead of us!
You can find out more about the project here: #ExchangeForEquality
