CULTURE, GENDER AND SOCIAL SERVICES

DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE, GENDER AND SOCIAL SERVICES

 A.       OUR VISION     To be cohesive and prosperous county of choice.

   B. OUR MISSION        To spearhead transformative and sustainable development towards achieving quality life for all. 

  C.       CORE VALUES

·           Prosperity

·           Excellence

·           Accountability

·           Cohesion

·           Gender equity and equality

·           Partnership

  D.       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 artefacts of different communities within the county.

6.         Gazzetment of major community sacred sites within the county, which previously has not documented or gazzeted.

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 helps in community meetings and local affairs.

12.     Procurement and distribution of wheel chairs to the 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.

7         Preservation of the county rich cultural heritage to help build prosperity and cohesion among diverse groups through activities like cultural festivals.

8        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.

9        Documentation and digitization of different communities’ indigenous knowledge through 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

   E.       ACHIEVEMENTS

1.             Formulation and implementation 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 dangers of FGM through community dialogue

7.             Child protection programme on accelerating abandonment of FGM and child marriage in the county.

8.             Development of County action plan on Women peace and security. 

9.             Commemoration of international days for women and girls.

10.         Commomeration of 16 days of Activism Against all forms of GBV.

11.         Successfully participation of NONDO wheelchair race in Isiolo

12.         Purchase of assistive devices for PWDs

13.         Formulation and implementation of social protection policy

14.         Cash transfer programme in collaboration with other partners

15.         Formulation of cash transfer technical working group

16.         Successful training of Ushanga women, acquired products for ushanga women and successfully linking them with the local and the 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 National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and state department of culture and heritage

21.         Training of schoolchildren on their rights in collaboration with 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