In many communities across Kakamega County, governance has long felt distant. Budget discussions happen in rooms many women never enter. Public participation notices are announced late or not at all. Survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) walk from office to office searching for justice, often meeting silence, stigma, or systems too exhausted to respond. For many women at the grassroots, leadership has never simply been about politics. It has been about survival. About access to healthcare. About whether a widow keeps her land after her husband dies. About whether a girl who survives rape can access treatment without being asked to first produce money she does not have.

These are the conversations that shaped the Haki Ni Yetu Project implemented by Women in Justice Centers (WIJC) – Western Chapter. The project was built around listening, listening to women in Matungu speak about being excluded from public participation spaces, listening to mothers in Tumaini describe collapsing healthcare systems and rising teenage pregnancies, listening to women in Wajibika speak about land injustices, stigma, and the barriers they face in governance spaces, listening to Women Human Rights Defenders carrying community struggles while often navigating burnout and limited support themselves.

At the center of the project was one important realization: governance is not abstract. Governance is deeply personal. When roads are impassable, women suffer first. When hospitals fail, women carry the burden. When public participation excludes ordinary citizens, it is grassroots women and vulnerable communities whose realities disappear from policy decisions. Through community dialogues, policy brief engagements, courtesy calls with county departments, and feminist leadership sessions, the project created spaces where governance became something communities could finally speak about openly and practically.

One of the strongest moments during the project came during the policy brief engagement hosted at the Kakamega County Gender offices. Unlike many governance conversations that remain disconnected from community realities, this meeting brought together duty bearers, Women Human Rights Defenders, Social Justice Centers, civil society actors, and grassroots representatives in one room. The discussions were raw and honest. Women spoke about the cost of P3 forms for rape survivors. About healthcare workers demanding payment before treatment. About GBV rescue centers existing physically but lacking staff and resources. About women being excluded from budgeting spaces because participation notices never reach villages in time. But beyond the frustrations, something important happened: communities and institutions listened to each other.

The engagement shifted from simply identifying problems to discussing systems, accountability, and collaboration. Conversations even emerged around harmonizing county GBV data systems so that cases documented at community level could better align with county structures; an issue many grassroots actors had struggled with for years, and perhaps quietly, but powerfully, relationships started forming. A WhatsApp coordination group was created after the policy brief engagement to continue conversations, follow up on action points, and strengthen collaboration among stakeholders. Small step. Big meaning. Because grassroots advocacy often dies after meetings end. This time, people wanted the conversation to continue.

The project also strengthened the role of Women Human Rights Defenders beyond mobilization. Women were not only participating; they were facilitating dialogues, engaging county officials, documenting community concerns, and leading governance conversations themselves. This is what made the Women in Justice Centers approach different. While Social Justice Centers broadly engage on community accountability and justice issues, WIJC intentionally centered women’s lived experiences within governance work. It created feminist spaces where women could discuss not only policy and leadership, but also fear, violence, exclusion, burnout, and survival. That distinction matters. Too often, governance conversations become technical and detached from lived realities. WIJC helped reconnect governance to everyday life. The project also revealed painful truths. Communities are overwhelmed by unmet needs. Women are demanding economic empowerment opportunities, legal aid support, mental health interventions, public participation training, safer healthcare systems, and access to justice. In some engagements, the recommendations emerging from communities exceeded what the project itself could support.

Yet even within those limitations, something shifted. Women who had never attended governance forums before began asking questions about county budgets. Community members started discussing petitions and memoranda submissions. Young women expressed interest in becoming paralegals and governance advocates. Local administrators joined conversations directly with communities. The project reminded everyone involved that grassroots activism is not loud because people enjoy protesting. It becomes loud when silence stops feeling safe. And maybe that is the real story here. Not that all the problems were solved. They were not. But for a moment, in churches, community halls, online trainings, policy meetings, and dialogue circles across Kakamega County, women who are usually spoken for began speaking for themselves. And that changes things.