DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE, GENDER AND SOCIAL SERVICES

OUR VISION
To be the cohesive and prosperous county of choice.
OUR MISSION
To spearhead transformative and sustainable development towards achieving quality of life for all.
CORE VALUES
  1. Prosperity
  2. Excellence
  3. Accountability
  4. Cohesion
  5. Gender equity and equality
  6. Partnership
OUR CORE MANDATES
The department has the mandate to promote, protect, and preserve the cultural heritage, diversity, and
values of the people of Marsabit County, while also ensuring the attainment of gender equality and
empowerment of vulnerable groups through the provision of social services. Some of the key functions of
the department include: -
1. Developing and implementing policies and programs aimed at promoting and preserving cultural
heritage and diversity.
2. Organizing cultural festivals.
3. Erection and completion of handcraft centers to economically empower local groups.
4. Upgrading of community museums to help bring back historical knowledge and help display
cultures from ages back.
5. Completion of desert museums with cultural artifacts of different communities within the county.
6. Gazettement of major community sacred sites within the county, which previously has not been
documented or gazetted.
7. Erection of county resource centers to help house county archives and botanical gardens
8. Protection of community cultural sites through demarcation and fencing to help halt encroachment.
9. Mass registration of persons living with disabilities through data collection and registration and
forwarding them to NCPWD.
10. Social protection programs in which the department in collaboration with development partners
launched cash transfers program across the county
11. Erection of community social halls and baraza parks to act as income-generating activities to
different women and youth groups while baraza parks help in community meetings and local
affairs.
12. Procurement and distribution of wheelchairs to disabled persons across the county.
13. Providing social services to vulnerable groups including women, children, the elderly, in addition,
persons living with disabilities.
14. Promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women through affirmative action programs
and policies.
15. Facilitating the participation of women and other marginalized groups in decision-making
processes at all levels.
16. Capacity strengthening of local women and communities on differentiated impacts of climate
shocks and stresses by placing gender concerns at the center of climate change actions and plans
across the county with the aim of building adaptive capacities of women towards climate impacts.
17. Collaborating with other government agencies and stakeholders to address cultural, gender, and
social issues affecting the county.
18. Preservation of the county's rich cultural heritage to help build prosperity and cohesion among
diverse groups through activities like cultural festivals.
19. Supporting and executing cross-border cultural programs between Marsabit county communities
and those in southern Ethiopia with the aim goal of fostering cross-border peaceful coexistence of
cross-border communities.
20. Documentation and digitization of different communities’ indigenous knowledge through the
development of community indigenous knowledge register.
Overall, the department is mandated to promote the well-being and social welfare of the people of
Marsabit County, with a focus on promoting their cultural heritage, ensuring gender equality, and
providing social services to vulnerable groups
ACHIEVEMENTS
1. Formulation and implementation of Marsabit County Gender Policy
2. Formulation of Marsabit County Integrated Child Policy
3. Development of county costed action plan to end FGM
4. Established and trained community gender champions in all the wards
5. Established programs that helped to save girls and women from harmful cultural practices ( FGM, Early marriages and other GBV)
6. Sensitized community on the dangers of FGM through community dialogue
7. Child protection program on accelerating abandonment of FGM and child marriage in the county.
8. Development of County action plan on Women's peace and security.
9. Commemoration of International Days for women and girls.
10. Commemoration of 16 days of Activism Against all forms of GBV.
11. Successfully participated in the NONDO wheelchair race in Isiolo
12. Purchase of assistive devices for PWDs
13. Formulation and implementation of social protection policy
14. Cash transfer program in collaboration with other partners
15. Formulation of cash transfer technical working group
16. Successful training of Ushanga women, acquiring products for Ushanga women, and successfully linking them with the local and international markets
17. Documentation of the Indigenous knowledge for all the 14 communities in Marsabit e.g. attires and foods
18. Training of youth champions for documentation of the Indigenous knowledge
19. Identification of community resource persons to assist in documentation
20. Collaborating with partners such as the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and the State Department of Culture and Heritage
21. Training of schoolchildren on their rights in collaboration with the association of sisterhoods of Kenya targeting std 4-8.
22. Identification, documentation, and gazettement of the cultural sites and heritage
23. Establishment of gender sector technical working group