There are approximately 2.5 million slum dwellers in about 200 settlements near Nairobi, Kenya, representing about 60 percent of the metropolitan area’s population – though occupying just 6 percent of the land. One of those settlements, Kibera, houses almost one million of those people, making it the biggest slum area in Africa, and one of the biggest in the world.
Since the violence that followed Kenya’s 2007 elections, the slums of Kibera and the city’s other informal settlements have been perceived as places of danger, violence, extreme sadness and despair.
URI Africa, together with partners such as the Damietta Peace Initiative and Justice, Peace & the Integrity of Creation- Franciscans Africa, has been engaging the people in community service and group training, engaging the settlement communities towards facilitating nonviolence and peacebuilding practices.
One of the highlights of these events was the Kibera clean-up drive, which attracted the local administration and international eminence. It has been an event that other peacebuilding groups and organizations have taken up, and the results have been remarkable.
Most recently, URI Africa joined JPIC-Franciscans Africa, the Damietta Peace Initiative, the Respect Foundation and the Franciscan Peace Institute in organizing an Interfaith Peace Prayer Initiative, targeting 200 grassroots religious leaders serving in the informal settlements with the aim of charging them with the supreme responsibility of guiding their followers to nonviolent engagements before, during and after the March 2013 elections.
This prayer event engaged the local administration, the religious leaders and the Electoral Board, as we had personnel from the IEBC -- the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission -- address the religious leaders on pertinent electoral procedures, further facilitating congregational consultation of the commission.
Interfaith prayers were said by representatives of several faiths, giving eminence to the respective community elders. The event was graced by the local administration, including village elders, chiefs and the District Officer. Among the religious leaders present was His Grace the Most Rev. Peter Kairu, the Archbishop of Nyeri, who is in charge of Catholic interfaith affairs, and Sheikh Abdul Ghafur of the Supreme Muslim Council (both pictured above).
The interfaith peace prayer was held on ACK Kibera grounds and was broadcast on QTV, a popular TV station targeting the informal settlements’ populace. It is also scheduled to appear in respective organizations’ newsletters and most significantly in the Kibera Journal, a free monthly journal circulating in Kibera.
