Sisi Ni Amani 2010

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Sisi ni Amani is a movement of peace groups throughout Kenya that aims to maximize the impact

of the country’s grassroots forces for peace by increasing the connectivity and enhancing

community and national visibility of its members. Sisi ni Amani leverages basic mobiletechnologies to communicate vital information about local peace and conflict among Kenya’s civil

society leaders at the community level.

GEOGRAPHIES of PEACE

In Kenya’s fragile political context, the strength of

social networks and community integration is

fundamental to the maintenance of peace and the

mitigation of politically-driven conflict. The

geographies and densities of social networks vary

tremendously throughout the country, from the semi-urban pastoralist communities of western

Kenya to Nairobi’s sprawling slums. At the same time, the importance of these networks to a

community’s ability to respond to and prevent the triggers of violence is universally paramount. In

the areas where Sisi ni Amani works, conflict is generally contained and settled within a given

geographical space, but is stimulated by tribalized politics and the perception of broader tensions

during national election periods. Our primary focus is thus on strengthening the intra-community

networks of local leaders who are progressing their communities away from violence, in preparation

for the 2012 general elections.

CONNECTIVITY & CONFLICT RESPONSE

Sisi ni Amani provides rapid and secure mobile connectivity on an SMS-based platform for an

exclusive network of civil society leaders in a given geography.

Sisi ni Amani takes a technology-aided approach to building and strengthening human networks

among Kenya’s local civil society leaders. Sisi ni Amani leverages basic mobile technologies to

create simple social-media platforms for the communication of crucial information about local

peace and conflict among civil society leaders at the community level. Our mobile platforms,

unique to Kenya’s growing but underdeveloped ICT consumer base, advance our mission of

facilitating secure and rapid communication among grassroots civil society leaders, who remain

disconnected by simple barriers of geography, resourses, and time, as tensions surrounding the 2012

general elections begin to emerge.

We offer self-identified peace groups access to a closed-loop SMS technology that allows them tosecurely and rapidly transmit SMS messages to their members via our own unique number.

Currently, these messages are used to relay information to group members for the purpose of

organizing and mobilizing in the course of the groups’ regular activities, as well as to reach out to

the broader community with information about upcoming peace events. The technology allows

these groups to operate more economically and time-effectively than traditional methods of

organizing and marketing.

Our technologies are central to our mission of connecting

and facilitating secure and rapid communication among our

members, but their utility is wholly dependent upon the

human bonds that sustain these self-identified networks.

Sisi ni Amani Empowering, Understanding, and Connecting Peace in Kenya



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Sisi ni Amani works with its member groups to develop community-specific protocols for the

secure and rapid communication of conflict early-warning sign and violence information via its

SMS platforms in preparation for Kenya’s 2012 elections. Our aim is to provide local peace

organizations the ability to communicate accurate information about conflict and peace efforts

among themselves so that they can formulate joint action-plans to mitigate the conflict or supportthe peace initiatives, and to the broader community so that they can dispel rumors and provide

accurate information about isolated acts of violence to their constituents.

Sisi ni Amani has identified four factors that impede the flow of accurate information about conflict

in its pilot partner communities: a lack of access to and availability of formal local media (radio,

t.v., newspaper); the inadequacy of local media that does exist, which has been vulnerable to

government censure, information delays, and the spread of hate-speech in the past; limitations on

the use of new mobile communication technologies due to lack of resources for purchasing air time

(less so for lack of access to mobile phones); and a general reliance on word-of-mouth

communication, which becomes highly susceptible to the spread of rumors, hate-ideology, and mis-

information during periods of heightened tension.

Sisi ni Amani’s mobile social-media platforms represent a game-changing advancement in the

spread of information to community stakeholders before, during, and after Kenya’s upcoming

general elections. In a given geography, willing community members will be subscribed to free

alerts from known civil society leaders that inform them when, if, and where a violent mob is

forming in their vicinity; if a politician has come into their slum to recruit youth foot-soldiers with

petty cash; if a number youth groups have united to secure their cell of the slum against the

incursion of violence (youth often being the principle perpretrators); if the community’s Maasai

group of elders has shown their solidarity with Kalenjin elders to promote peace; and so on.

Sisi ni Amani creates a semi-formal information platform for the instant transmission of

community-level information to its subscribers from trusted local civil society leaders, exploiting

the large penetration of mobile phones and introducing the first information service with an

immediate turnover of locally-relevant information. By financing the sharing of these alerts at the

cost of one unit of SMS per community subscriber (current rates are 1Ksh per SMS; 80Ksh:1USD),

it eliminates the cost burden that currently prevents the spread of information among civil society

leaders and the broader community. And by allowing unconnected citizens simultaneous access to

the same information as their neighbours from a neutral and reputable source, Sisi ni Amani

combats the spread of inflammatory rumor and conjecture in vulnerable communities.

NETWORKING

Sisi ni Amani’s chapters provide a forum for mobilizing and networking peace groups and civil

society leaders within a given community.

Sisi ni Amani stimulates the creation of new community

structures for connecting all willing peace organizations

and informal peace groups in a given geographical area. It

currently has two fledging chapters in Baba Ndogo and

Korogocho slums, Nairobi, and an emerging chapter in

Narok, Rift Valley. In the future, Sisi ni Amani aims to hold national peace workshops that will

bring together the leaders of its member groups for informed conversations on conflict

transformation, forming lasting relationships based on shared experiences. Our workshops will

include peer-led capacity-building sessions, group discussions on topics such as root causes of conflict, and the sharing of successes and challenges in conflict prevention and response.

Empowering, Understanding, and Connecting Peace in Kenya



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The guiding aim of Sisi ni Amani chapters is to promote Community Conversations using all

available tools at the local level: among civil society leaders, through SMS-based reporting,

mobilization, and conflict-response, and workshops on conflict and peace in the community; for the

broader community, through subscription to SMS-based alerts and updates about local peace and

conflict, and participation in regular community fora for disscusions on the root causes of violence.

PUBLICITY & RESEARCH

Sisi ni Amani produces ground-breaking media about local peace activities in order to cultivate a

greater awareness and appreciation within the public for the daily successes and struggles of

Kenya’s peace heroes.

Sisi ni Amani uses a variety of media to enhance the visibility of its

members at the community and national levels, with the aim of

promoting greater general understanding of the character of peace

work being done throughout Kenya. Our website provides mediaoutlets with a resource for reporting positive news from otherwise

stigmatized areas of Kenya. Sisi ni Amani trains its member groups to

update and maintain group profiles on its website, which include

group descriptions, interview transcripts, and short documentaries produced by Sisi ni Amani. Our

interviews bring forth the stories of the youth who were directly involved in Kenya’s 2008 post-

election violence, and whose current peace-building activities represent a direct response to what

they view as the root causes of violence in their communities.

BABA NDOGO: The Story of our Pilot Community

In our pilot community of Baba Ndogo (“Little Uncle” in Kiswahili), one of Nairobi’s more

violence-affected slums, we have catalyzed 12 independent groups, whose primary activities range

from performance arts and ‘edutainment’ to garbage collection and urban farming, to communicate

and work together under the umbrella of Sisi ni Amani. Each of these groups began mobilizing their

members – primarily youth (defined as about 16 to 35 years) in their area – to redress certain root

causes of violence through their chosen activities. Their activities represent a form of second-degree

peace promotion by going to the heart of central problems in their communities – unemployment,

youth idleness, negative tribal stereotypes – while the fact of their existence serves to maintain

peace in a more direct way, by uniting the youth, who are frequently the primary agents of violence,

over a given area towards a positive cause. An example we frequently cite is Downstream Youth

Group, a collection of youths in Baba Ndogo who have employed themselves through a car-wash

business. Of the many car-washes in Baba Ndogo, this one distinguishes itself as having been

started as a direct response to the unemployment that left its members vulnerable to manipulation

by cash-weilding politicians, who entice youth in Baba Ndogo slum to arm themselves against rival

ethnic communities with as little as Ksh500, or $6USD, during the 2007/8 election period.

With a combined representation of over 150 members, these groups

organized and spear-headed the launch of Sisi ni Amani in Baba

Ndogo on September 25, 2010, an event that involved over 500

members of the community to spread the word about our unique

phone number to the community stakeholders and future SMS-alerts

subscribers. Additionally, the groups have formed a formal Secretariat

(Sisi ni Amani Baba Ndogo) to coordinate future peace activities and

conflict response over the upcoming two years. By bringing together all of the youth who were“reading from the same page of peace” for the first time, as our community partners aptly put it, our

launch imbued the leaders of Baba Ndogo’s peace groups with the energy and platform for




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mobilizing all of the community’s civil society leaders towards accomplishing the mission of Sisi ni

Amani in Baba Ndogo: to maximize the impact of the forces for peace in the community.

The Baba Ndogo secretariat is currently establishing a sister chapter in neighbouring Korogocho

slum, a highly-affected area during Kenya’s post-election violence in 2008, where Sisi ni Amani brought together 11 peace groups with activities ranging from caring for disabled youth to

empowering young women against stigmatization and violence, to organize a community launch

and begin the formation of a second secretariat, Sisi ni Amani Mtaani Korogocho. The SMS

subscriber base in Korogocho has grown rapidly due to our door-to-door outreach during the

November 27th launch and our partnership with a popular local radio station, KochFM, who

generously broadcasted our number to the community during both launches. Moreover, groups have

begun to mobilize themselves through our SMS platform in the course of their daily and weekly

activities, indicating a broad utilitiy for the mobile platform we have created for both slums.

CROWDSOURCING vs. SNOWBALLING: Our Story of Adapting to Local Circumstances

Sisi ni Amani came to Kenya with a model for engaging

with peace organizations throughout the country that is

barely recognizeable today, and with good cause. Our

defining principles have been flexibility, adaptability, and

our keenness to listen through the entire process of finding our niche in Kenya’s broad community

of local civil society leaders and technology innovators. Our openness to change has allowed us to

identify what we believe is a much stronger mode of engagement with our partner communities that

fits within our capacities as a small organization and remains true to our mission of maximizing the

impact of the forces for peace in Kenya.

Our original idea – to network through workshops peace leaders across the entire country, who

would be identified in crowdsourced SMS reports submitted by altruistic neighbours or the peace

leaders themselves, reports which would also create a comprehensive ‘peace map’ of grassroots

organizations throughout Kenya – was intriguing in its scope. Our good friends, partners, and

interested third-party organizations who granted us an audience during our first two months in

Nairobi were impressed by the innovative application of available technologies we were proposing,

and were especially moved by the passion of our vision for a country just two years from the brink

of a civil war, but the more strategic thinkers among them suggested that we first start by

identifying a small number of communities within Nairobi for our initial engagement, and then

proceed to scale to a national level.

We heeded this advice and, by sheer circumstance, met the

individual who would introduce us to Baba Ndogo and become the

chair of its Secretariat, Ramadhan “Rama” Obiero. Rama is a

musician and the leader of ACREF, an edutainment center in Baba

Ndogo slum with a 400-capacity theatre, and a large cadre of youth

and adult entertainers who weave relevant thematic elements about

local conflict and unity into their performances. He remembers

standing on the rooftop of a four-story building in the slum when the

presidential announcement that caused the country to erupt into ethnic violence in late 2007 was

made; at one point over the course of the ensuing weeks of terror, he was pressured into guarding a

post that demarcated the boundary of his ethnic community’s territory in Baba Ndogo, a post from

which he fled after only two hours, fearing for his life. He has since moved his family to another

village in the slum, and continues to live as a leader in the community, representative of the successone can achieve by simply improving the lives and future pospects of those around you.


Rama, far left.



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Exhilirated by the idea of Sisi ni Amani being introduced to Baba Ndogo, Rama

inadvertantly taught us a lesson that would have profound implications for our

model of community engagement: the fastest and most reliable route to

identifying all of the local peace organizations within a given geography was to

simply ask around, call a meeting, and see who turns up. We identified 11

independent groups this way, and each contributed to the community launch one

month hence. The geography of the social networks in Baba Ndogo slum and its

nine cells is dense, and these networks easily and often spill over into

neighbouring slums. As a result there are very few individuals, let alone groups, who lack

connections to those around them. While we encouraged community members to save Sisi ni

Amani’s phone number in their phones during our launch on September 25 th, we soon discovered

that the true utility of this growing follower base would not be to identify new peace initiatives (we

found none), but to communicate directly with potentially thousands of Baba Ndogos about local

peace initiatives and, come the 2012 election period, issues of conflict and political violence. We

had thus discarded the idea of “crowdsourcing peace,” adopting the data sampler’s “snowballing”

technique instead, which in our case allows us to vet groups based on reputations, activities, and

self-motivation to join Sisi ni Amani. Moreover, we have added much greater specificity and purpose to the community-level workshops we had originally aimed to hold as networking sessions,

now including discussions on community factors of conflict and creating joint action plans for

utilizing Sisi ni Amani’s SMS tools for the mitigation and prevention of future conflict, tensions,

and fears. This was the first instance of us adapting to the circumstances we encountered on the

ground.

The first five months of Sisi ni Amani’s gestation have evinced numerous evolutions within our

model for community engagement. Once envisioned as a top-down facilitator and networker for

groups throughout Kenya, our appeal is now as a grassroots movement of civil society leaders that

rallies its members around new SMS technologies and their untapped potential to facilitate vital

community conversations, of nearly every type, for the prevention of future political violence.

SAUTI ya MASHINANI: Moving Forward into 2011

Looking forward to 2011, Sisi ni Amani is partnering with the Voluntary Youth Philanthropists, a

Kenyan-based NGO, to launch a peace caravan during the new year in order to expand its network

and understand the technological needs of different communities in western Kenya. The Sauti ya

Mashinani 2011 caravan is a project targeting 15 violence prone areas of the former Rift Valley,

Western, and Nyanza provinces with the aim of researching and informing the residents of the early

warning signs of violence and creating community action plans for how to respond to them. The

project will equip civil society groups with the technological skills to relay information about

conflict early warning signs and community tensions to the appropriate peace and securitystakeholders using Sisi ni Amani’s and VYP’s SMS platforms.




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Documents

Sisi Ni Amani 2010