CEMIRIDE’s work has been ground-breaking work supporting minorities and indigenous peoples around the country from the Awer tribe in Boni forest to the Ogiek community in Mau Forest. Before CEMIRIDE’s existence in the CSO sector, there was no conversation on the existence and the violation of minorities and indigenous peoples' rights in Kenya. The recognition of minorities and indigenous communities has largely been achieved, through the Constitution of Kenya 2010, as a result of CEMIRIDE’s leading the lobbying and advocacy during the constitution review process, as well as the evolving jurisprudence as a result of public interest litigation (Endorois (pastoralists);
Ogiek (forest community) and Nubians (National/ethnic Minority community experiencing right to citizenship violations) in Kenyan courts and within the African Union Human Rights System. Because recognition of minorities and indigenous communities as well as their rights has been attained, CEMIRIDEs strategic phase (2018-2022) is now on economic empowerment and knowledge management, enabling better access to basic needs such as food security, quality education and health care for target communities. Implementation of strategies around this takes a holistic view of human rights to include political, economic, environmental and social rights.
In line with the new strategy, CEMIRIDE will deepen existing programs and expand areas of focus using the following approaches: Advocacy, Research, Knowledge sharing, Capacity development and Strategic partnerships and networking. This programming strategy allows the target groups to play a critical role in identifying their key issues and developing solutions to the same. CEMIRIDE will support the target groups by designing and implementing programs that are responsive to and reflective of the key issues and solutions generated in close collaboration with the target communities. This requires that CEMIRIDE develops a standard procedure of program design and development that is based on co-creation of effective solutions with beneficiary communities.