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The Children's Peace Initiative for Northern Kenya has developed and implemented a model peace building program for children in areas of Northern Kenya where inter-tribal conflicts are rampant. Key activities include:
Children's Peace Camp- An outdoor event that involves team building exercises, fun and value games, reflection on conflict and peace, and celebration and appreciation of cultures. The Camp is an ice breaking event for children who grow up experiencing animosity between their peoples, believing that they are each other's enemy. Though they live in the same region and face similar challenges in life, children in Marsabit and Maralal are divided by walls of hatred that force them to grow up in a world apart. The aim of the Camp is to dispel this perception, to help children build confidence in each other regardless of their ethnic affiliation and become good friends.
Peace Festivals - Inter-community and inter-school events in which children present songs, poems and skits on the themes of peace and conflict. Children tell the community and the world how ethnic violence is affecting them and why peace must prevail guides the concert program.
Holiday Exchange Program- Selected school children in target classes/communities visit and stay with their friends from the neighboring community. During the peace exchange program activities take place that include academic classes and visiting others' home and village.
For sustainability, CPI-Kenya trains young people working within the schools to carry out different children's peace activities. Once trained, they train others in their different schools. This ensures that peace activities continue after the project phase has ended. Trainers of trainees help in carrying out peace education in school weekly and monitor progress closely. They also recommend improvements in the program for their specific community.
In February 2012, two children's peace camps in Samburu and Marsabit counties were established as pilots. As a result of participation in these activities, over 500 children from six warring ethnic communities learned conflict resolution skills and developed better cross cultural understanding. The initiative also indirectly impacted all family members, teachers and other children both in and out of school for an estimated impact of over 7000 people.
Evidence of the effectiveness of these camps may be seen in both the children served and their immediate families. Groups of children from formerly hostile communities interact with friends. Some children spent the night at the homes of the family of their new friends, which has never happened before. Parents from the host community went to the school to see the friends of their sons and daughters who visited their neighborhood. The communication between the children of the two target communities has greatly improved after the peace camps and as a result, the children are now exchanging gifts and letters.
The long term implementation plan is to continue to institute Peace Camps in other counties that are affected by similar conflict. The major hurdle is that there are great geographical distances for an area encompassing over 900 kilometers of very remote and rough terrain, which is very difficult to reach using standard transportation.
CPI Kenya is funded for program development, staffing and the costs of implementing the actual peace activities. However, the key constraint currently is a lack of reliable means of transport to reach the areas we serve where roads are generally unpaved and in bad condition. The organization is in need of a means of transport for staff, volunteers and children to replicate peace activities in other remote areas of Northern Kenya that suffer from violence due to ethnic conflict.
The funds from this grant will be used to fund 2 Peace Camps, vehicle rental for staff implimentation of peace activities, production of a documentary to be used for future fund raising and public relations and staff per diems for 12 days of community awareness programs.
PLEASE SEE THE ATTACHED PDF FILEs FOR PICTURES AND MORE DETAILS ABOUT CPI.
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