Researcher, Africa Conflict Prevention Program, Institute for Security Studies
2010:I’m in Kenya, enjoying being back. I’m working as a Researcher for the Africa Conflict Prevention Program of the Institute for Security Studies.
2008: I am now working with UNDP in Darfur, Sudan, as a Peacebuilding Specialist with a fund that works with the Darfur community initiatives to build trust and confidence among conflicting groups. The fund is called DCPSF. Details of it can be found in the following link
http://www.sd.undp.org/dcpsf.htm
January 2007: My summer’s work in Kakuma and Kibera slums with the youth, using the Youth STAR manual, was received with a lot of eagerness. It was an eye opener of the need for this training in the region.The challenge of the trauma that HIV/AIDS has brought in the slum areas was real.
The program also stretched my skills of communicating in Kiswahili in these slum areas. The program particularly affirmed the goals/objectives of the curriculum which was mainly to pass on the message on the cycles of violence. This helped to build further the confidence I had in the curriculum we had developed. The program proved its relevance in the region, and I would be happy to replicate the same to other areas once the material is available for distribution (we were using it on a pilot basis).
In December I took up a post with Mercy Corps in Bosaso, Somalia, as the Program Manager, Conflict Mitigation Program. We will be engaged in promoting practical action in reconciliation and peace building to address conflict and promote peace in North Eastern Somalia. We will be working to build the capacity in the communities by working with and through four local NGOs.
We are still in the initial stages of our planning. It’s a challenging task. The team is wonderful and the people I meet are wonderful. We will soon be going to the interior to work in the communities. The skills I gained at CJP will surely come in handy: the conflict mapping, dialogue skills, negotiations, learner centered skills in conflict transformation, etc. The list is endless! Everything will surely come in handy.
I will want to keep in touch with other peace builders in the world in order to share practices and ideas. SPI will surely be useful too, to keep abreast with the current trends in peacebuilding. Hope I can attend those in the near future.