Arthur Wasonga, Director of Global Peace Youth Kenya at GPLC East Africa 2015

Global Peace Foundation
August 6, 2015

Zanzibar, Tanzania | July 21 – 24, 2015
“Promoting Peace, Security and Sustainable Development in East Africa”

Challenge: According to a report by Africa Center for Strategic Studies, radical organizations understand and prey upon a combination of political realities, socioeconomic factors, and individual characteristics that render youth in East Africa vulnerable to Violent Extremist Organization (VEO) recruitment.

Therefore, this project shall be carried out in a 12-month period, proposed for launching in September 2015. The project shall have four main components:

  1. Peace and Conflict Assessment
  2. Stakeholder Convening for Community Mapping and Dialogue
  3. Combatting Extremism in Media and Online
  4. Skills Training and Entrepreneurship Introduction
  5. “Hackathon” for Peace – Youth Summit

The aim of this project is to facilitate and provide avenues to build social cohesion and peacebuilding capacity among diverse women and youth in the five counties within the coastal line as the pilot project areas.

Strategies:

Peace and Conflict Assessment– Global Peace Foundation-Kenya shall assess the peace and conflict situation in coastal strip, specifically in the target areas. Results of this assessment shall be validated and presented to youth and other stakeholders, and serve as the basis for the stakeholder community mapping sessions in particular, as well as inform the evaluation logic model. In addition to data collection and analysis, we expect to engage approximately 30 stakeholders. This activity shall be carried out on the 1st month of the project implementation.

Stakeholder Convenings for Community Mapping and Dialogue – Through this activity, women and youth from various faiths and cultures in the target areas will engage in a community mapping process through stakeholder convening and dialogue sessions.  This series begins with the presentation of the assessment, and then proceeds with community voices being facilitated to identify challenges, opportunities, resources, and generate ideas for collaborative community-led peacebuilding projects.  Through this process, GPF will facilitate youth, community and government leaders, women and diverse groups of faith leaders as they share their understanding and experience on peace, conflict and recommendations for the community.  The end-point in this process is for diverse groups to present mutually beneficial community service or social enterprise projects that would help to build peace and social cohesion in their communities.

This shall be carried out on the 2nd to 9th month of its project implementation within the Seven Constituencies in target sub- counties/areas with monthly stakeholder convening and ongoing outreach to cultivate community / stakeholder engagement. Stakeholder engagement will target three (3) Community Action Groups (CAGs) from each of the seven constituencies within kilifi county, namely, Kilifi North, Kilifi South, Kaloleni, Rabai, Ganze, Malindi,and Magarini constituencies within Kilifi County. These community Action Groups comprises mainly of women and youth.

From our prior experience, GPF finds that this process cultivates social cohesion among many stakeholder groups diverse in culture, faith and also among local / grassroots community members and national/county level government officials – and that the mutually beneficial service or social enterprises create a platform for long term, collaborative engagement of diverse community leaders.

Combatting Extremism in Media and Onlinethis one-day awareness-raising workshop will focus on engaging local media, journalists, educators and other stakeholders, in addition to woman and youth, to learn about how social media and online extremism may impact themselves and their communities, and how media can fuel conflict or help promote peacebuilding. The aim is to promote ethical traditional and social media use, and build the capacity of women, youth and community leaders to contribute their voices for peace through use of social media and other approachable outlets.  This is proposed to take place during April / May of 2016.

Skills Training and Entrepreneurship Introduction– Global Peace Foundation will partner with a corporate stakeholder currently active in the LEAP HUBs Kenya[i] program to provide a one-day introductory training, teach basic skill sets in an overview approach, and encourage connections to available opportunities through Global Peace Foundation programs, as well as others such as Uwezo, Women, Youth Fund, UN Habitat, and other peace dividend initiatives. This is proposed to take place during June / July of 2016.

Hackathon for Peace – Youth Summit– This is the culminating activity of the project where around 315 youth, in small groups from among the target areas shall gather to present area-based proposals for community-led peacebuilding projects to be carried out in their home communities. Local women and youth leaders will be facilitated to evaluate the various proposals presented, using their community mapping results and entrepreneurial skills training to assess the top three peacebuilding service projects or social enterprises.  Global Peace Foundation will seek corporate partners for the Summit and be prepared with capacity building and resources to modestly support the top projects proposed.  This is projected to take place in August 2016.

The activity shall be held at appropriate city center accessible to all participants and guests. Local government officials and concerned agencies in each county shall be invited in this activity. Guests/Observers from other parts of Kenya, including media, shall be invited to witness the activity.

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