Nyanam International

We are a restorative justice organization, preparing widows to be leaders of positive social transformation in their communities through integrated programs in leadership, health, livelihoods and justice. Our work alleviates widowhood poverty, mitigates the impact of HIV/AIDS, and gives widows the tools to tackle oppressive cultural, economic, and social practices that undermine widows’ dignity and limit their agency.

Vision
Africa where widows thrive

Past and current activities
Our unit of operation is the leadership circles, which are self-led widow-to-widow support groups that meet on a weekly basis. We also have youth mentorship groups that organize and meet weekly during school holidays. In the leadership circles, widows offer each other spiritual, emotional, and economic support, replacing isolation and loneliness with communities of friendship. These circles consolidate their collective voice to guide the design and implementation of Nyanam’s work. As an organization, we have five main program areas that guide how we engage with Nyanam widows and their children. We use capacity strengthening as the core approach in implementing our programs. Our holistic interventions in leadership, livelihoods, health, justice, and youth education are delivered through our unique curriculum called Voice of Change, a Nyanam’s unique and widow centric training curriculum tailored to respond to the needs and concerns of widows, and uses storytelling, deep listening, and social action as approaches for community transformation.

Leadership: Widowhood thrusts women into household leadership in patriarchal culture where male headship is valued and expected. We affirm the leadership of widows and harness their potential for community transformation. From the leadership circles, we have trained 640 widows in our various capacities who have in turned trained 780 widows in the same knowledge and skills in their groups. Further, leadership circles conduct Bible studies for spiritual development, personal sharing for emotional support, and table banking for economic development.

Livelihoods: Our livelihood program has two main components; economic empowerment and sustainable agriculture. We train Nyanam widows in sustainable agriculture, financial literacy, table banking and micro- business skills. We offer them seed funding for their group table banking and businesses, we provide them with vegetable seeds for planting, and new gardening resources (multistorey gardens).

Health: Nyanam widows' health and well-being is our primary focus. In this program we train our widows in trauma healing, preventative health and counselling. Through our professional and trained counselors, we provide widows with individual and group counseling sessions which support and addresses each widows’ nuanced situation and unique set of challenges, as well as mental health workshops with specific themes at the request of the widows. Further, we have a team of trained community health volunteers that provide monthly health talk sessions in the different leadership circles as well as home visits and health referrals where needed.

Justice: Access to, ownership and control of land is both a human right and an economic justice for widows. In this program, we raise awareness on widowhood issues and take action to address injustices related to land, housing and widows’ rights. We ensure this through community leaders education and training, conducting conflict resolution sessions among Nyanam widows and their relatives, provide direct legal support to widows who are pursuing their land and property inheritance and succession, provide housing support by building Nyanam widows dignified houses in partnership with other stakeholders and undertake policy advocacy with different government agencies and policy makers on widows human rights.

Youth Education: Widows’ children are particularly a population in need of support, as poverty limits the future of both the widows and their families. Guided by our 3-year youth education strategy, we provide capacity training to Nyanam widows children in comprehensive health education, technology and robotics and environmental justice. The training is multiplied in the youth mentorship groups by a group of trained Nyanam youth mentors supported by trained widow matrons. In addition, we provide need based secondary school education sponsorship to widows children to improves student access to secondary education, but also builds students’ communication skills and goal setting through the application and mentorship process.

In the future we are planning to serve up to 10,000 widows in our region and establish a widow-led cooperative business for financial security and additional income for Nyanam widows improving their financial status and muscles. Further, we seek to expand the work to other communities through training of different partners and stakeholders in our intervention the Voice of Change as a key driver for positive community transformation in the communities of widows.