Abstract
Women in developing countries face several challenges related to gender inequality through experiences in limited access to education, labour market, and finances. Deep rooted social and cultural practices often devalue the notion of being a woman, and create limitations for women’s life opportunities and personal empowerment. The overall objective of this paper is to reflect on ways of effectively engaging with informal settlement communities in Kenya and Tanzania, in a way that elicits information that is useful to the community and to research. The paper is part of a larger research project targeted at couples living in a household as participants, and identified workshops as a useful approach in engaging with the targeted participants. To ensure the workshops were designed in a practical manner, opinions of local practitioners were sought. This paper reflects on those consultations, based on three key questions about the design, structure, and modalities of the workshops. The methods used for the consultations were interviews, which were held among 7 practitioners across the two countries. The findings indicated that it was necessary to show sensitivity in the design and structure of the workshops, as well as to ensure that the modalities should be open to discussions of topics that were a priority to the participants. The paper concludes that the design, structure, and modalities of workshops must bear in mind the sensitive nature of the questions of discussion; and thus must ensure that questions are carefully structured and aligned to a community’s cultural modalities.
Recommended Citation
Njiraini, Nancy and Kamando, Amina N.
(2021)
"Understanding Gender Inequalities in Households: Anecdotal Encounters by Practitioners in Kenya and Tanzania,"
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences: Vol. 10
:
No.
2
, Article 11.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v10.i2.7
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