This Week in Conflict – Nigeria and Kenya
Voice of America: A Nigerian security man sits under a campaign poster of Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan, with US President Barrack Obama, in Abuja, Nigeria
Rebecca Sargent’s weekly update of conflict around the world is a great resource to help stay abreast of conflict around the world and often features stories from countries we work in. In Nigeria, for example, voter registration has recently closed for the upcoming April elections with more than 70 million eligible voters. The Nigerian Army is preparing for elections by adopting proactive security measures to ensure a successful vote.
Evolving to new regional challenges, Search for Common Ground and its project partners are working to promote inclusive systems and engage Nigerian citizens. In the Plateau State, SFCG will be implementing a new program focusing on the alleviation of interreligious violence.
Other programs include support for the reintegration process of 3,000 former military combatants who have put down their arms and demobilized in the Niger Delta region. SFCG and its project partners are striving to deepen the impact of government sponsored training already received by the ex-militants, and prevent regression from the time period between their release from camp and the subsequent skills acquisition process. SFCG is assisting these former militants as they partake in community service activities to build vocational skills as well as trust in the communities. Former militants also receive non-violence training.
Daily Nation: Displaced families at Afraha Stadium in Nakuru
Kenya is also featured in Sargent’s update, where land conflicts continue to simmer in the Rift Valley, as plans to resettle internally displaced persons (IDPs) has led to a standoff between the government and Maasai leaders who oppose the resettlement. The Rift Valley has been at the center of many ethnic conflicts in Kenya, as it was in the 2008 post-election violence in which 1,300 people were killed and 350,000 left homeless. The government planned to resettle 850 displaced families until indigenous Maasai leaders opposed the intended site. The resettlement attempt has left the government and the Maasai leaders at a standoff.
However, with politicians now eyeing the 2012 elections, IDPs fear their plight will soon be forgotten. “Our fear is that this thing is getting out of hand and the conflict may not be resolved soon. We do not want to move from one problem to a bigger one. Personally, I cannot stand seeing people fighting again. It is better we stay here,” said Esther Wanjiru, a mother of four.
Search for Common Ground developed The Team in Kenya as a response to the 2008 post-election violence. The television series follows the members of a soccer club as they overcome tribal, ethnic and socio-economic differences. The Team will begin its third season this year, educating and entertaining a mass audience through universal storylines and authentic characters created and portrayed by Kenyan writers and actors. Season one of The Team is available for viewing online here.
Saji Prelis (R) and Marc Sommers (L) at the GLPF
With one of the world’s youngest and poorest populations, Rwanda is seen as both a success story with a promising future and as an unequal society facing serious hurdles. Marc Sommers’ Stuck: Youth in Rwanda, to be published later this year, focuses on Rwandan youth who are ‘stuck,’ unable to achieve traditional adulthood despite vigorous effort. Some ‘failed adults’ migrate to Kigali, where their aim is survival. read more…
Jean Paul Nicondindiriye and Daniella Niteka, with the Representative of OHCHR in Burundi.
The efforts of SFCG’s Studio Ijambo to promote reconciliation, dialogue, and cooperation through high-quality radio programs were widely recognized in Burundi over the past year. read more…
Riding on Common Ground – Celebrating Black History Month
(from www.btco.net)
By Jeanné Isler
As I was riding the bus the other night in Washington, DC, several high school students from Duke Ellington School of the Arts boarded the bus. It was 9:00 pm, so I figured they were coming from a rehearsal at school.
Instead of stereotypical teenaged, public bus revelry, these kids offered a different kind of noise – song and poetry. The group split up; half sat in the back of the bus, half in the front. The kids in the back of the bus started talking – loudly – about a poetry performance they were practicing.
“You know me; my verse has to be about sex,” said one girl. read more…
The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued that self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. ~Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize lecture, 11 December 1968
The competition for the Radio For Peacebuilding Africa Awards 2011 is now open for submissions!
The RFPA Awards recognise the best radio programmes that contribute to peace in Africa. The RFPA Awards particularly celebrate radio programmes that help to reduce group and community tensions, that enhance and give value to shared interests, that break down listener stereotypes, and/or that provide positive role models.
The 2011 Awards are open to all African radio broadcasters, both men and women. Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:
- RFPA Gender Award;
- RFPA Youth Award; and
- RFPA Jury’s Special Award.
Three prizes will be awarded in each category. The first prize is 500 Euros, the second 250 Euros, and the third 100 Euros. The winning recipients will be honoured at an award ceremony.
Specific entry requirements include:
- Programmes can be in any language spoken on the African continent, but must be accompanied by a translation in either English or French.
- Programmes must be a minimum of 20 minutes in duration.
- Radio programmes must have been broadcast between January 1 and December 31, 2010.
- Participants can submit more than one entry, but each must be sent as a discrete submission.
Each entry must include a complete entry form, a copy of the radio programme, and a translation if necessary. Submissions can be submitted electronically to rfpa@sfcg.org or by mail to any SFCG Africa Country Office (list available at http://www.sfcg.org/sfcg/sfcg_world.html) or SFCG’s Brussels Office.
All entries must be received by midnight GMT, March 25, 2011.
Previous winning entries are available for listening and download from the audio section of our website www.radiopeaceafrica.org
For more information and to apply, contact the RFPA Team: rfpa@sfcg.org
We wish good luck to all the participants and we look forward to listening to your radio programmes!
The RFPA Team
