It was in 2013 when I had the pleasure to meet the Inherit Your Rights team. At the time I did not know it would be the beginning of a long adventurous relationship. In 2014, 2015 and 2016 I stayed in Arusha to conduct fieldwork relating my Bachelor, and later my Master thesis in Cultural Anthropology. Inherit Your Rights turned out to be my home base during the course of my research where I mostly worked as qualitative researcher. After successfully getting my degrees, I stayed involved with Inherit Your Rights till mid 2017.
When I travelled for the first time from the Netherlands to Arusha, Inherit Your Rights was just founded and I became part of a great team. We worked from the living room of one of the founders. Everyone was super motivated, we did a lot of fundraising, networking and research, and so formed the beginning of Inherit Your Rights’ curriculum. Over the years we established our own unique legal trainings, made radio shows and we celebrated moving in to our own office. We celebrated the times we successfully mediated and won cases, whether at the family-clan level or in court. With all the hard work of Inherit Your Rights’ team we were able to reach out to many women and groups aiming for people to know and to get their rights.
Working in an environment with women who are facing and battling gender violence and injustice can be challenging, emotional and dangerous. It is also very inspiring and rewarding. The many women who I met during my time with Inherit Your Rights are all fighters, courageous, and examples for many around them. I feel very honoured I could be part of them.
- Lotte Peeters