AMECEA Online News had an exclusive interview with the Caritas Director from the Diocese of Maralal and last week publish part one of the series on the realities of Samburu County and the Catholic Church’s effort in conjunction with partners to bring peace and reconciliation as well as provide for humanitarian basic needs to the communities of Samburu County.
Part TWO: Catholic Church’s effort in conjunction with partners towards bringing and Reconciliation in Samburu County
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Although the inter-ethnic conflict over cattle rustling in the county of Samburu has continued to pose a security threat on the local people and underdevelopment, the Catholic Diocese of Maralal, which covers the entire County, is working round the clock in bid to bring peace, and reconciliation among the conflicting communities. With the help of donor partners, a number of initiatives have been started by the diocese and so far, the fruits have begun to manifest albeit slowly.
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Although the inter-ethnic conflict over cattle rustling in the county of Samburu has continued to pose a security threat on the local people and underdevelopment, the Catholic Diocese of Maralal, which covers the entire County, is working round the clock in bid to bring peace, and reconciliation among the conflicting communities. With the help of donor partners, a number of initiatives have been started by the diocese and so far, the fruits have begun to manifest albeit slowly.“Cattle rustling have been seen just like a lifestyle among the pastoralist communities of the Northern Kenya. It is not even defined in the Law of Kenya, yet in the real sense it is robbery with violence but unfortunately not under that category. It is just seen as a normal thing. And as the situation is left uncontrolled, we in Samburu County continue closing schools, there are places where people have just deserted and left completely because of the conflict and we continue losing live and there is a lot of division,” said Mr. Evans Onyiego, Caritas Director, Diocese of Samburu.
“As a diocese we are working through interfaith structure and part of our observation is that the conscience of people is dead and we believe that faith has space for reconciliation,” Onyiego said adding that the logo of the Bishop of Maralal is with the ministry of reconciliation where there is the lion and the lamb staying together. With this vision we go to the community and try to bring together the different denominations first to pray for peace because we believe that peace will eventually come from God.”
According to Onyiego praying alone is not enough; the biggest mission is to get the gun out of the people’s mind. “The gun that the people of Samburu have is psychological. You might convince them at one point to surrender it but still the people would still go and acquire another one because they feels that they are not safe without that gun. So first we have to remove the gun from their mindset.”
The diocese with the help of various partners, is trying to bring in connector projects to help bring the communities together. “We have managed to set up a school for peace where we have the children of Pokot, Turkana and Samburu studying together. Our motive is to remove the perception that has been created in the minds of these young children by their parents that people from certain communities are bad and must be treated as enemies. Our aim is to integrate these children by having them stay together, share and appreciate each the culture of each other. So far this is working very well. We have also done water projects through which we are encouraging the communities to share the resources by making it clear that the resource belongs to all; Turkana, Pokot and Samburu and they have to use it together so that all have to benefit,” Onyiego explained.
The Diocese is also working very closely with the government in terms of advocacy. “We did a mapping, of various resources in the county to establish which community resources are available in terms of roads, health facilities, schools, and out of this mapping we are able to advocate and lobby the government to provide the necessary social amenities and infrastructure,” he said adding that once the government responds, it opens up for various interactions to take place.
Another effort by the diocese to improve the situation is by spearheading alternative sources of livelihood to the pastoral communities especially the young people. “We have started income generating projects whereby we are giving young people money to venture into farming and other income projects such as chicken rearing chicken and this are all in a bid to change their mindset that livelihood is not dependent only in the cow.
In all these projects, Mr. Onyiego says that The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) has always remained their faithful partner since the inception of the diocese. “We started working with them on integrated approach because the kind of problems we are dealing with required an integrated approach; for instance, a cattle rustling which is theft is an economic issues, people are stealing because they lack, so we needed to address the economic aspect of the communities. At the same time it is a justice and peace issue and so we are doing integrated food security projects.”
With the assistance from CAFOD, the diocese has also facilitated the establishment of peace markets in neutral areas where both conflicting communities can interact through trade. “Two peace markets have been created one in Pokot area and the other in Samburu area and this has encouraged the movements and interactions of people from different communities.”
By Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Online News