Overview

Kente Threads is a Kenya-based initiative that reimagines humanitarian action by centering the resilience and lived experiences of vulnerable communities  in particular, displaced and refugee women and girls.

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Named after the intricately woven African fabric, the project weaves together data, community voices, and policy advocacy to create a more responsive and inclusive humanitarian system.

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Through this initiative, we refine HERDATA a co-designed data tool that tracks how climate disasters impact migration, decision-making, and crisis response gaps. By uniting refugee-led groups, policymakers, and humanitarian actors, we drive systemic change to ensure vulnerable populations shape the policies designed to support them.

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The Challenge We Are Addressing 

Right now, displaced and refugee women and girls remain among the most under-served and under-heard groups in global humanitarian systems. They are routinely left in the shadows due to three deeply entrenched, interconnected systemic gaps:

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• Data Gaps: Existing datasets rarely disaggregate by gender, leaving the specific needs of displaced women invisible to decision-makers.

• Participation Gaps: Women from displaced communities are routinely excluded from the decision-making spaces that determine their futures.

• Knowledge Gaps: Crisis responders lack a clear understanding of how displaced women access support during crises, and the barriers they face.

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To break this cycle, Kente Threads has built a robust data-to-advocacy pipeline. Grounded firmly in feminist principles and community leadership, we turn raw field data into powerful advocacy tools that cannot be ignored.

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What we do

To turn our vision into measurable reality, the project focuses its action across three critical strategic outcomes:

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1. Enhanced Data Capacity

We actively build the capacity of local and women-led organisations to collect, own, and analyse gender-specific data. Through participatory workshops, we bring together displaced women and grassroots crisis responders to co-design and validate HERDATA indicators that accurately track the real-world impacts of climate disasters. This hands on work is supported by a comprehensive HERDATA User Manual and continuous training in feminist research methodologies.

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2. Meaningful Participation in Decision-Making

We refuse to settle for tokenism. We conduct rigorous research to uncover and dismantle the systemic barriers that keep refugee women out of leadership roles. By training displaced women as peer advocates, we actively facilitate their direct participation in influential regional and international forums, equipping them with policy recommendations to advocate for genuine Refugee Women's Leadership.

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3. Improved Understanding Among Decision-Makers

We bridge the gap between vulnerable communities and the institutional actors who serve them. Using community mapping and service utilisation analysis, we pinpoint exactly where and how women access effective aid and where the system fails them. We synthesise these crucial insights into evidence-based toolkits so policymakers can implement truly gender-responsive crisis solutions

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Our Approach

We believe that how we do the work matters just as much as the work itself. The Kente Threads framework is built upon four unshakeable pillars:

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• Community Co-Design: We never guess what a community needs. Every HERDATA indicator and methodology is built with displaced women, never just for them.

• Feminist Methodology: Our research and training paradigms shift power back to the community, emphasizing true accountability and collective power-sharing.

• Evidence-to-Advocacy Pipeline: We create a seamless pipeline where real data gathered on the ground directly shapes high-level national and regional policy.

• Systemic Change: We look beyond temporary project timelines; our goal is to permanently shift global institutional norms so gender-responsive data becomes the mandatory standard.

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Why Support Kente Threads?

Investing in this project means investing in sustainable, structural change. The initiative stands out because it:

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• Fills a Critical Gap: Addresses the global scarcity of gender-disaggregated data on displaced populations.

• Community-Owned: Ensuring sustainability and local ownership well beyond the project period.

• Real Policy Impact: Findings feed directly into national and regional humanitarian dialogues.

• Proven Partnership: Led by three trusted organisations with deep roots in feminist humanitarian action and community development.

• Globally Aligned: Directly supports the Global Compact on Refugees, the Sendai Framework, and the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

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