ACCESS JUSTICE AND EQUALITY FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE KILIMANJARO REGION, TANZANIA

Background

KWIECO was conceived in September 1987 initially by a group of ten women. KWIECO is the only legal aid provider in the Kilimanjaro region. It has competent and experienced leadership and committed members and counsellors who are willing to render voluntary services.
KWIECO possesses competence within law, human rights, gender, science and education. This will not only ensure that the explicitly stated objectives are reached, but will also promote interaction. Through cooperation, information sharing and capacity building, new experiences and knowledge are achieved.
KWIECO is an African pendant to Norwegian JURK. Both are run by women and work within three main areas: legal aid, education and lobbying. Both organisations are based on and depend on voluntary work for their existence.
The two organisations has established an inter-organisational familiarization with a view of sharing initial ideas on areas of interest.

Purpose/objective

KWIECO has received support from JURK through FOKUS, Forum for Women and Development since 2005. The results from this evaluation will decide whether we will prolong our cooperation.

The overall issues to be reviewed:
- how this project has affected the situation for women
- Has the project achieved its goals
- the organisation of the project and long term planning for sustainability
- the cooperation process between KWIECO and JURK

Methodology

1. Review of literature- Desk and literature research: internal documents of KWIECO and relevant literature of the respective fields.
2. Conducting open-structured interviews using the ToR as a guideline with the following groups:
(a) The staff of KWIECO individually and as a group (Management, Programme, Support and Volunteers). This was to understand about: The programme work; Cooperation with the partners; the funding base of the organisation (role of other donors); and Progress/opportunities on the one hand and what kind of challenges/problems on the other hand they see in their work.
(b) Representatives of the different cooperation/network partners. In these interviews we gathered information about the respective organisation, its structure and its modus operandi; its cooperation with KWIECO; areas in need of improvement; and gender mainstreaming and value addition by KWIECO in network activities.
(c) Target groups and key informants
3. Participatory interaction using workshops, with KWIECO to establish the basic grounding for the evaluation, community groups, children, community leaders and partner organisations to get a comprehensive overview of the activities of KWIECO organisation and to share the preliminary results of the evaluation with KWIECO, JURK and their partners.
4. Field Visits which provided an opportunity to observe activities on the ground.

Key findings

The project continues to be very relevant in the Kilimanjaro region where there are no other legal aid organization targeting women and children. It should be improved and continued.
• The project has contributed greatly to the empowerment of women and children in the Kilimanjaro area; created awareness and enhanced knowledge on women's rights; increased access to justice through counseling and litigation; reduced domestic violence against women; and entrenched respect for human rights.
• The project has brought children to the fore as champions of their own rights through youth clubs and youth festivals.
• KWIECO still needs assistance to sustain its activities; build its capacity to carry out the work; institutionalise and build an identity as an organisation; develop management policies an streamline management functions; attract and retain competent staff; follow up and sustain activities; carry out research and lobby activities; mobilise resources from a broader range of funders and disseminate information on righst to a wider audience.
• The relationship between JURK an KWIECO needs to be more synergistic to facilitate learning from each other and not only a donor-grantee relationship.