The team meeting that took place in Nakuru on the 28 May, 2011 at St Mary’s Pastoral Centre, Nakuru, brought together 36 people from different parts of the country, i.e. Nairobi, Nakuru, Subukia, Ndaragwa, Eldoret, Olkalau, Rongai and Bungoma. These team members are associated with different programmes of Initiatives of Change ranging from Peace Circles, Kenya I Care to Farmers Dialogue. The number of young people in attendance was encouraging for they amounted to more than 80% of the team.
The major focus for the one day meeting was to fellowship together, inspire and motivate each other as change activists. ‘We are all doing different things to bring positive changes in the society, we might at times feel like we are alone and lose hope. That is why we meet today to share what we are doing in our lives and encourage each other to keep on moving towards the right direction no matter the challenges on the way’ shared Ann Njeri Ndianguiat the start of the meeting.
This being a meeting to reflect, introspect and share, we gave most of our time to it. The team was taken through a 30 minutes reflection on exploring the ‘cracks’ in our lives and society and the ‘tools to mend the cracks’ by a young man, Samuel Muiruri. This was followed by one and a half hours of heart to heart deep sharing which was honest and inspiring. The cracks in people’s lives and society ranged from corruption, tribalism, poor governance to irresponsibility amongst others. Among the tools that the team members said they would use to mend the cracks were appreciation, positive attitude, walking the talk, appreciating diversity, team work and self character.
Zacharia Muturi, a university student, gave his experience at the hostels whereby he took the initiative of spreading his bed every morning, though being despised by his fellow roommates. After a while his roommates, one after the other, started making their beds too! Abdi, a Kenyan of Somalia origin, shared how after attending the first Eastern Africa Youth Conference in Feb, 2011, he expanded a Somali peace group that he has been leading so as to accommodate refugees from Rwanda and Ethiopia since they share a history.
One lady from Eldoret, who attended a Peace Circles workshop early last year, shared how uncomfortable people felt coming close to her and she admitted she felt alone. But after the Peace Circles workshop, she realized that she needed other people and had to learn how to work in consultation. She also expressed the importance of reflections ‘In our lives, we have everything but we don’t use nor see it because we don’t reflect’ she said.
Mediatrix Shikoli and Michael Muikia, who just recently returned from Action for Life programme shared their experience during the programme and what it meant to them. They shared that the programme was life transforming and that they hope to share their experiences with Kenyans and beyond. The two are already hard at work with the Kenya I Care programme in their regions- Subukia and Eldoret.
With our elections coming up next year, it was important to brainstorm on the Clean Elections Campaign. The team agreed that we can use the An African Answer film and/or the Picha Mtaani documentary-a video about the post elections violence, as tools to reach out to people and advocate for clean and fair elections. Since we are currently limited in terms of financial resources, the team was requested to start the Clean Elections Campaigns in their neighbourhoods and to think and share of more creative ways of running the programme. The team was also challenged by Patrick Barasa from Rongai to familiarise themselves with the devolved structure of the government so as to be in a position to enlighten other citizens before the general elections. .
As the day came to a close, the spirit of most of the team members was high. And they were excited to know that IofC Kenya had opened an office in Nakuru. The office is located at Mache Plaza, 1st Floor, Room no 3. Ann Njeri Ndiangui is currently in charge of the office.