Kakuzi, a Kenyan agricultural company has unveiled a team among its employees to spearhead their Sexual Harassment Awareness Reporting and Prevention (SHARP) program. The week-long awareness campaign provides an opportunity to create awareness and encourage reporting through victim centered approaches in relation to incidences of sexual harassment.
Through this SHARP campaign, employees are sensitized on their roles and responsibilities towards ensuring the enjoyment of Human rights by all in a bid to create a safe, healthy and conducive working environment for all.
During the SHARP week, the induction and training of SHARP champions served to ensure that all employees across the operations have direct access points to information and training related to the SHARP Program. Spearheaded by the Human Rights manager, the unveiling of the champions was a strong indication that the Company is committed to a continuous process of prevention of sexual harassment.
Several employees made voluntary signed commitments to contribute to the prevention and encourage the reporting of cases. Innovatively, wrist bands with information on confidential reporting channels were disseminated alongside posters on notice boards across all divisions of the farm.
The program comes with guarantees of confidentiality, non-retaliation and sensitivity to victims through the provision of a full-time counselor that supports the handling of cases. These foundational pillars of the SHARP program serve to enhance credibility and confidence that the company is committed to deal with issues in a serious, expeditious, sensitive and confidential manner.
“We look forward to working with our SHARP champions to sensitize all employees on prevention of sexual harassment now and in the future. Through this program, we guarantee that the r safeguards provided will be fully implemented at all times. By taking voluntary leadership to steer this process, I would like to congratulate our SHARP champions for availing all of us the opportunity to set the pace for our commitment to Zero tolerance to sexual harassment,” Stella Wangechi, the Human Rights Manager at Kakuzi.