The story of the Friends Church Peace Team

The story of the Friends Church Peace Team in

Kenya

On 27 December 2007, Kenyans go to the polls to elect a new president

As the announcement of a winner is inexplicably delayed, the vote counting process loses credibility and tension mounts in the country.

Youth begin to gather in the streets for “peaceful protest”.

When the result is finally announced, it is considered by many to be rigged.

Young people take to the streets in protest. Their actions are destructive of property, but not (at that stage) violent against people.

Youth burn tires and throw stones. Police respond with live bullets.

Homes and shops are looted and burned, primarily those belonging to ethnic minority communities in that location

Transportation is cut nationwide

Homes of ethnic minorities are burned

Internally displaced people are chased from their homes and dumped on the roadside – more than 300,000 are displaced nationwide

Kisumu city center is completely ransacked, looted and burned. Much of this is done by the police.

Many thousands are injured

1,133 people are killed, the majority of them by the police

Some IDPs are organized in camps

Many are left to fend for themselves

Friends begin doing what they can to help, in their own locations

Kenyan Quaker leaders meet 24-27 January 2008 to discern a common response. The Friends Church Peace Team is created.

Strategies are agreed

Priority #1 is humanitarian assistance to IDPs

We find groups of IDPs who are not in organized camps and are not being served by any other agency

The need is enormous and we struggle to focus on what we can do

We learn “on the job”

27 February 2008 – Kofi Annan brokers a power-sharing agreement that ends the violence. There is a commitment to address root causes.

The government orders all IDPs to leave the camps and return to their “ancestral homes”. People continue to be dumped in places where they have no resources.

We choose Turbo Division as the locus of our work, focusing on reconciliation between the “receiving” and “returning” communities

We carry out a house-to-house survey in Turbo

We bring the Christian and Muslim leaders in Turbo together to form an interfaith peace task force

Young people from diverse ethnic groups in Turbo are trained as AVP facilitators

We spend time on training and reflection as a team

We hire Getry Agizah to serve as the FCPT Coordinator

Our programme settles into a long-term strategy for peacemaking in Kenya, including:•Alternatives to Violence Programme (AVP)•Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC)•Transformative Mediation•Turning the Tide (TTT)•Sporting events•Interfaith events•Advocacy and public policy

We form international partnerships

The five-year term of the coalition government ends in 2013 and the country heads to another general election

We focus on prevention of election-related violence

Citizen reporters

Civic education

The election in March 2013 is (mostly) peaceful and (mostly) credible

The new President and Deputy President are on trial at the ICC, accused of masterminding the 2008 violence

Kenya is a “frontline” state in the war on terror

Friends continue to witness and work for peace in their own context and globally

Friends are still working for peace, justice and reconciliation in Kenya. The need continues, long after the

headlines move on. Support the Friends Church Peace Team with a

donation today.www.fum.org