Telling the ECSA Story

This is the story of Mediatrice, who became the leader of the colline of Bwoga in Burundi to represent women and to challenge gender-based violence. "My name is Mediatrice Ndayizeye, I am married and I have 5 children. I am a farmer and leader of the colline since 2016. I am among the first women to be elected in my community. This happened after several training's from CARE, teaching us that as women, we are capable, we have the right to be elected and we can contribute to shaping the community we want. Before it was difficult to believe that, because I have been taught that women are responsible for the household, and that we don’t have the right to speak in public. When I got elected, everyone in the street was pointing their finger at me. I was a shame to my in-laws and definitely the last woman that my husband wanted to have as a wife at this time. Therefore, we asked CARE to train our husbands as well. That is how the first VSLA groups for men were created, with the

Every Voice Counts (EVC) is a five year Governance Program CARE is implementing in six countries including Sudan with support from the Government of the Netherlands. The EVC’s vision that CARE is striving to achieve to support poor youth and women from pastoral and agricultural communities in East and South Darfur to participate and influence public decision-making processes resulting in public policies and planning that better responds to their needs for recovery and development. One of the effective social accountability tools the project is using is the Community Scorecards (CSC). The use of Community Scorecards is not very common in Sudan the way it is in other countries like Rwanda. It was introduced by CARE in South Darfur for the first time in 2015 as part of another project that was also supported by the Government of the Netherlands. Currently, CARE in Sudan is supporting 17 Scorecards processes in East and South Darfur between 2017 and early 2018. In October 2017,

CARE INTERNATIONAL with the financial support of the Embassy of the Netherlands is running a multi-sector project called MAWE TATU in six health zones in the East of the country. The social unrest and civil wars that have long ravaged this part of the country have left serious consequences that have strongly impacted the household economy, human rights including women's and the health of populations. It is in this context that CARE INTERNATIONAL implements the MAWE TATU project (three pebbles in Swahili language) with the aim of giving nearly 60,000 people the benefit of an efficient empowerment of women, a commitment of men as well as sex education. complete school and out-of-school. The technique is to bring together women through VSLAs that will enable them to access credit, save and follow lessons on topics related to the fight against gender-based violence, conflict management and others.  Men are gathered in men's councils (BARAZA) where they discuss and focus

The people of Estie, especially women, have endured a lot.  They were continually affected by lack of access to clean water coupled with poor sanitation and hygiene practices.  This exposed them to various water-borne diseases that affected their health, productivity, economy and even dignity.   The situation was worse for women and girls – as they are the ones responsible for fetching water, in addition to their numerous activities such as cooking, cleaning, taking care of the family and even farming. Women and girls in Estie used to travel up to four hours and collect 20 - 30 liters of water every day.  This, undoubtedly steals their productive time and ability to earn money.  Lack of access to clean water also poses significant impact on girls’ education.  Because girls are expected to support their mothers on water collection, their chance of going to school was limited; those who go to school mostly reach late or become dropouts. The members of the water resource ad

Eilawit Teshome is 14 year old girl from Ifabas Kebele, West Hararghe, Oromia. She is a grade 8 student. Her father is a farmer and her mother is a housewife. She has 3 siblings and she is the youngest. The Kebele (the lowest administrative level) that she lives in, is one of the productive safety net program Kebeles (economic support is provided by CARE SPIR-DFSA project since the area is food unsecured). She wants to join CARE and believes that education is the way to realize her dream. Most of girls in my neighborhood drop out of school because their parents cannot afford to buy them school materials. In addition, the community does not understand the importance of sending children to school. The situation is even worse on girls. They are not given the chance to go to school and even if they did, they will be forced to drop out of school to get married at their early adolescent years. In our community, there is a belief that girls would reach nowhere educated or not.  We did

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