Five days of community listening started with a simple act: sitting down and listening. Early evidence from our Gender Action Learning System (GALS) shows deep shifts taking root. Tools like the Happy Family Tree and Visioning Journey are moving past theory to challenge everyday domestic power dynamics. In households where traditional expectations once dictated every chore, male champions are stepping up to cook, clean, handle childcare, and manage farm produce alongside their partners. Nearby, young people who once faced systemic risks like substance abuse have organized, forming cooperative SACCOs and registered CBOs to anchor their own economic futures. Yet, the ground reality exposes sharp contradictions that require urgent focus. Women traders work through the night, often until dawn, only to return home to take on another shift of unpaid domestic work, with little time to rest or recover. At the same time, trading centers face an unchecked expansion of alcohol outlets, 16 to 20 packed into a single small area, threatening local stability and safety. Transformation requires addressing these structural pressures directly. Moving forward, community captains are scaling peer-to-peer mentoring, expanding networks for male allies, and setting up ongoing feedback loops with local administration to protect livelihoods. This happens when communities lead the analysis and drive their own solutions.

After years of social accountability work in Vihiga, supported by TISA and Welthungerhilfe (WHH), something important is shifting: citizens are moving from demanding accountability to occupying spaces where decisions are made. Naomi Amwayi is a powerful example. Through community health scorecards, Naomi and others documented gaps in healthcare, including sanitation and accessibility barriers affecting persons with disabilities. She also organized persons with disabilities to register for the Social Health Authority and helped them navigate assessments and certification. But this work exposed a deeper question: why should communities have no meaningful say in who represents them on health facility boards? The community challenged this.

24 hours left to submit public views on the Tertiary Education, Placement and Funding Bill, 2026. Join us tomorrow morning, we are sitting down with the text to build direct, actionable recommendations for Parliament before the deadline passes. 🗓️Date: Friday 2nd October 2026 ⏰ Time: 10:30 AM Register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi… Is this draft a genuine fix for tertiary funding, or does it shift too much weight onto graduates? Tertiary Education needs reform and financial stability. That part is clear. But when you read the legal text, real questions come up: • Is the line between state scholarships and student loans clear enough? • Does a 365-day repayment trigger make sense in today's job market? • Does the Bill clarify or solve the hidden discriminating banding and Means Testing formulas? #EducationBill2026 #PublicParticipation #HigherEducation

We graced the launch of Vihiga’s six-month County-wide SGBV Campaign, bringing together the Governor, Deputy Governor, Principal Secretary for Gender and Affirmative Action, Judiciary, survivors, widows, civil society and communities. The message was clear: enough is enough, but ending SGBV requires more than condemnation. It requires sustained public investment and action. Vihiga carries a painful burden of SGBV, child abuse and molestation. Behind every statistic is a survivor whose life has been disrupted and whose voice is too often unheard. TISA called on the County Government to prioritise the completion and operationalisation of Vihiga Level 5 Hospital, so survivors can access medical care, forensic services, psychosocial support and effective referral systems.

Yesterday, TISA, together with WHH and Circle Innovation as part of a wider consortium, met with the County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperative Development, Mr. Wilfred Mwenda Kiara, and Chief Officer Livestock & Fisheries, Mr. John Kuria, to discuss how we can work together on an upcoming project titled Grain to Gain(G2G). The project aims to strengthen women's economic opportunities, agency and leadership within the food systems of Kiambu and Kitui Counties. It was a fulfilling conversation. We discussed the project objectives, the structure of the partnership and what the collaboration will mean for women and households in Kiambu participating in the poultry and dairy goat value chains; the priority value chains chosen for their potential to create real economic opportunities for women while complementing county priorities. A key focus was making sure no one is left behind: the project must reach women in marginalised areas of Kiambu, and farmers across the county must see tangible improvements in their livelihoods.

A rant from a Kenyan taxpayer!! The Ministry of Campaign Logistics has officially unveiled Phase One and it comes freshly carved from solid mahogany. A politician just handed out a Mwiko in nyanza!! Forget job creation or lowering inflation. Transformative leadership now means handing voters a huge tactical mwiko capable of stirring a fifty-Kilogram pot of ugali. We moved from branded lesos to wheelbarrows, and now we have achieved peak campaign evolution: industrial kitchenware. The message to the electorate is crystal clear. Politicians might not reduce the price of unga, but they will personally supply the heavy machinery needed to turn it into a meal.

It was a pleasure joining the @KenyaEditors Guild, in partnership with @IRIglobal, for an institutional dialogue on the challenges surrounding complex and high-risk public financing. Alexander Riithi, highlited why meaningful accountability begins with access. Journalists cannot explain what they cannot access, interrogate what they cannot understand, or verify what institutions are unwilling to share. Public institutions have a responsibility to make information accessible, respond to questions and engage the media as partners in ensuring citizens can make sense of how public resources are raised, borrowed and spent. From Parliament and the Auditor-General to the Controller of Budget, investigative and anti-corruption agencies and the Judiciary, accountability is an ecosystem. Every link must work. And ultimately, public debt is not just about figures, percentages or economic jargon. It is about the Kenyan who pays taxes. The young person looking for a job. The patient looking for medicine. The child who needs a classroom. The citizen asking whether public resources are actually improving their life. The question is simple: How do you interrogate and verify what you do not know? #PublicFinance #Accountability #TISA