About Dada Collective Network
This is not a tech project. This is a justice project that uses tech.
Dada Collective Network is the digital foundation of a long-term trust ecosystem for women and girls in Kenya. We were built by the movement that filled the streets in January 2024. We exist because institutions failed, and the people in them did not build what was needed. So we are building it ourselves.
Why Dada exists
Kenya has documented 1,069 female murders since 2016. Of those, 842 meet the UNODC definition of femicide. The number that should stop you: zero have ever been legally classified as femicide. The crime does not exist in Kenyan statute.
The institutions that should respond — police, courts, prosecution, healthcare — all exist. The gauntlet a survivor faces is not produced by any single institution being absent. It is produced by the absence of connective tissue between them. She carries the file. She retells the story. She pays the transport. She absorbs the delay. Most cases die at the handoffs, not the decisions.
In January 2024, Kenya said enough. Tens of thousands marched. “We Are Human Beings.” The government established a task force. A Penal Code Amendment Bill reached Parliament in 2026. The movement forced every one of those outcomes.
Dada Collective Network is what sustains the pressure between the moments of crisis. It is the infrastructure the movement needs to win — not just to be visible, but to be impossible to ignore.
The gauntlet: what every survivor navigates alone
Each node below is an institution she must visit in person, retelling her account from scratch. Most cases die between nodes, not at them.
Governance
Three teams. Three mandates. No single point of capture.
No single team can be simultaneously inside the movement, inside the data, and inside the institutions. That is why three teams share governance — with explicit veto rights that cannot be overridden by any donor or state actor.
Convene survivors, police, prosecutors, courts. Hold the femicide movement together. Steward the app. Hold the survivor experience as the non-negotiable constraint.
Ten years of pattern recognition. Owns and operates the national GBV/femicide database. Distinguishes structural failures from resource problems — and knows which institutional failures are designed, not accidental.
Policy advocacy, feminist movement support, institutional relationships, credibility. Sits at exactly the intersection this work requires. Ensures the project is designed around survivor safety first — and that no donor can capture the agenda.
What we stand for
Survivor-led, not survivor-centred
Women are not recipients of services here. They guide this process. Every design decision, every feature, every publication is tested against one question: does this treat a woman as a citizen exercising a right, or a petitioner asking for a favour?
Data as accountability, not performance
We publish numbers because named, counted, timestamped data is the only thing that moves institutions. Not because statistics tell the human story — they don't. We use data to create accountability, and stories to create empathy.
Safety above everything
80% of femicides are committed by intimate partners. Any woman using Dada may be doing so while at risk. No identifying information is ever published without explicit, safety-audited consent. The quick-exit button is not optional.
Independent data sovereignty
The Silencing Women Project database is owned by SWP — not by Dada Collective, not by Heinrich Böll Foundation, not by any donor or state body. If SWP dissolves, the database transfers to a survivor-led successor entity. It never reverts to government.
Technology serves justice, not the reverse
The tech team has no veto rights. Technology is one leg of three — and the smallest one. The movement holds convening power. The data team holds accountability. Technology carries what the movement decides must be carried.
Long-termism
This is infrastructure for 20 years, not a project for a funding cycle. Every architectural decision — technical, organisational, legal — is made for scale: 1,000 users → 10,000 → 100,000 → 1 million. Build for where it needs to go, not where it starts.
Partner with Dada Collective Network
Technology development is covered in-kind by Datacraft Limited. We are actively seeking partners for research, operations, community programmes, and the Dada Salama app build. Governance ensures no single funder can direct the agenda.