Religious Women In Interreligious Dialogue

Creating Safe Spaces for Women In Inter-religious Dialogue

Religious women at the Coast of Kenya remain invisible in agendas concerning peace, security and development. This has a negative impact on the peace situation in the region. The women have an extensive network and various opportunities to influence peace and security of the region. They have regular meetings with women, youths, teenagers and children both in religious and nonreligious settings. The women are rich with religious teachings, resources and experiences that have proven useful for peace building. These opportunities are thus not well exploited for peace building initiatives. The influence these women religious leaders have had on women leaders have enabled them to undertake impactful peace, security and development initiatives using non-religious women organizations.  Despite all this, women religious leaders are yet to receive adequate support to explore these potentials.

The fact that the majority of religious institutions are male governed, women religious leaders therein do not receive equal recognition like the male clergy. The women religious leaders are limited to act just within their faith boundaries. This is limiting their potential in promoting strong and resilient communities that enjoy peace, security and development. Whenever there are opportunities for capacity building for peace and security, men receive the first priority. This continues to increase the invisibility of women religious leaders despite their potential. This has sometimes forced these women to seek empowerment from non-religious organizations, often compromising on certain religious values and cultures in order to fit in.

Religious organizations consider women as weak and vulnerable and thus exposing them to peace building and security work is putting them at risk. Therefore the women have been limited to addressing other social issues such as parenting, community health, nutrition and education. This has limited the growth of the potential within the women religious leaders. Women are good in promoting relationships amongst people, promote reconciliations using nonviolent means and mobilize communities for joint initiatives. The lack of exposure among women religious leaders denies communities benefits from this untapped potential.

Women connect very well amongst themselves. This is why there are more women self help groups than men's. They bond and create friendships very fast. This potentials is important for data collection, investigation and analysis of the peace context in an area. This information can be useful for designing and evaluating interventions that can improve impact of initiatives within communities. However the poor recognition of these women religious leaders deny the peace practitioner the access to vital information for targeted and impactful peace-building initiatives. 

The invisibility of women religious leaders in peace, security and development work, have made their efforts to receive minimal consideration. Research studies and policy formulations also offer women limited visibility due to limited considerations. Often, because of the dominance of men in official religious leadership positions, opportunities for peace building participation is given to men and as a result discussion mainly focuses on men’s perspectives and roles. Thus women's needs, perspectives and contributions miss the opportunity for considerations in these spaces and in designing peace building strategies.

The women religious leaders thus benefit less from available support including capacity building opportunities, material resources and financial support. This is causing the women religious leaders to under perform despite the huge potentials within them. Women Moving Agenda Network Kenya (WOMAN-KENYA) seeks to;

·         Amplify the potentials of women religious leaders by creating a safe space for their consultation, engagement and resource mobilizations to support their peace building work both at intra-religious level and inter-religious level.

·         Improve the capacity of women religious leaders in peace, security and development management through training and exposure with special focus on faith values related to these areas.

·         Publicize efforts of women religious leaders at the coast in peace, security and development management through networking, symposium and online platforms.

The recognition of women religious leaders in peace, security and development will strengthen the existing peace-building efforts and improve our understanding of what can be done to create more sustainable peace in the Coast Region and Kenya as a whole.

Approach

WOMAN - KENYA using inter-religious dialogue and trainings shall support women religious leaders' improve their capacity and contributions in community peace building. The use of religious texts and teachings shall stimulate and sustain conversations among women religious leaders from diverse faiths around promoting sustainable peace in the community. The trainings shall expose the women to knew information and experiences that will enhance their capacities. Through this the women will define their roles in peace building and possible ways for synergy building and collaboration to complement the ongoing peace processes by other religious and non-religious actors.

To do this WOMAN-KENYA will mobilize women religious leaders from various religious institutions of diverse religions and faiths for joint actions.  Involving the religious institutions shall develop by-in and support of the initiatives by the male clergy. They support is key for effective participation of the women religious leaders. The coming together of the women religious leaders shall enable them be sensitized on the need for peace in the community and their roles towards contributing to this peace.  They shall also benefit from training to build and sharpen their peace building knowledge and skills. They shall also learn from other peace practitioners through symposiums, exchanges and joint initiatives.

The women religious leaders working with their grassroots network leaders shall establish community dialogue meetings with community members for awareness creation on the need for peace. Influencing women, male youths, female youths and elders in the communities shall enhance their impact for peace and security in their communities. In these forums the women shall collect peace and security data that will be useful in monitoring and evaluating current peace program and developing future programs for their communities.

WOMAN -Kenya will support the women religious leaders to engage peace stakeholders within the county. These will include security agents, faith leaders and civil society actors. This shall be done as consultative meetings and courtesy calls. This is to ensure all necessary stakeholders support the efforts for the women religious leaders and accept for partnership and collaboration for increased peace impact.

Theory of Change

IF women religious leaders are supported to actively engage amongst themselves and with other stakeholders for peace and security, then recurrence of conflicts and violence  will be reduced because the entry of the women religion leaders in the peace-building arena shall enhance the ongoing peace building efforts and enhance the impact within communities.