Country - Kenya
Core Areas of Work:
Peacemaking, PVE, Deradicalization, and Reintegration, Women's Participation, Youth Participation
About the Organization
Coast Education Centre (COEC) is an organization based in Kenya that promotes the participation of youth, women, and other marginalized social groups in community development. COEC contributes to local, national, and international efforts to promote human rights, development, and social well-being. Its programs focus on issues including women’s and youth empowerment, human rights and religious tolerance, youth’s political participation, and addressing violent extremism.
ICAN’s Innovative Peace Fund has supported COEC since 2018, including supporting the organization to draft a women’s countering violence extremism charter which was added to the national strategy on counterterrorism to ensure a gendered perspective and increased collaboration with civil society.
Core Areas of Work:
- Peacemaking
- PVE
- Women and Youth Empowerment
Stories & Features
In March 2020, ICAN and its global network of women-led peacebuilding organizations, WASL, launched the She Builds Peace (SBP) campaign.
ICAN convened 20 members of WASL in Lisbon for the “Our Strategies, Our Peace” Writers’ Workshop. This unique gathering provided a secure and creative space for women peacebuilders to share their strategies, experience, expertise, and stories from conflict and crisis contexts.
COEC launched the She Builds Peace campaign with a conference that brought together government officials, religious clergy, members of peace committees, and women peacebuilders for a discussion on the role of women peacebuilders in Kenya.
With support from ICAN’s Innovative Peace Fund (IPF), COEC created the Coast Women’s CVE Charter, which it presented to the Government of Kenya in October 2018. The recommendations focused on psychosocial support, gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation of CVE policy and programs, and fund availability to women-led organizations.
“Global Leadership, Local Partnerships Women’s Leadership and Gender Perspectives on Preventing Violent Extremism,” high-level UN meeting was attended by the Secretary-General António Guterres and more than twenty Permanent Representatives of Member States.

WASL to me means family, and I have a lot of sisters across the world. You connect to everybody in different ways. You have those who speak different languages, but you get a hug, and it’s like we all understand one another. The struggles that one goes through and what I go through is the same, because we are women peacebuilders, human rights defenders.
More Countries & Partners
YLDF envisions a Yemen in which young women and men can lead across society and contribute to a better world.
PCID is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization that is dedicated to the study of Islamic and democratic political thought.
AWAW creates space for war affected women and relatives of those who are missing to work together for peace.
Women Relief Aid (WRA) is a women-led, non-governmental, nonprofit, non-political, and non-religious organization based in South Sudan.
Madaniya is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that was established in 2018 by a group of women activists in Sudan.
The Center for Civil Society and Democracy (CCSD) is an independent, nonprofit, non-governmental organization based in Syria.
Kareemat Center is an organization that supports conflict-affected Syrian women and children who sought refuge in Turkey.
Mobaderoon is a Syrian organization that works to promote active citizenship and build trust to support and sustain peaceful coexistence.
Zenobia Association for Syrian Women works to strengthen the capacities of Syrian women to create a better quality of life.