Pastoralist Peace Education and Awareness Campaign

The Peace Education and Awareness campaign is designed to highlight and popularise traditional governance systems and traditional methods of conflict resolution, promote intercultural exchanges between rival communities, and support ex-combatants to engage in alternative livelihoods and reintegrate into society. The goal of the education part of this campaign is to contain and forestall future hatred, conflicts, and animosities between the pastoralist communities in the region. The campaign seeks to bring a sense of inter-clan belonging and relationships to people living in this province of Kenya and hopes to strengthen past peace initiatives by developing the mediation and conflict prevention capabilities of local communities.

As part of their work, PAJAN held a one-week peacebuilding and reconciliation workshop that brought together peacebuilders, pastoralist herders, women's groups, youth groups, journalists, and ex-combatants. The workshop explored the problem of inter-clan clashes, resource conflicts, and cross-border raids and spillovers. The workshop was designed to initiate reconciliation, harmony, and co-existence as well as to open the province to the rest of the world. The workshops produced a joint working plan between the stakeholders and government officials with a goal of bringing peace. According to the organisers, it was the first workshop that brought together government officials, ex-combatants, and women peacebuilders.

The project has also held workshops and training sessions to build pastoralists' capacity for non-violent problem solving and to offer business training for rehabilitated ex-combatants. They have also distributed Lifeline radios to refugee women and conducted a campaign on the eradication of small arms and light weapons that involved a two-day workshop, a peaceful procession, and a one-month radio programme.

Conflict, Rural Development

The Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network is a media organisation that brings together journalists from arid and semi-arid districts of Kenya under one umbrella. The organisation uses community media to highlight, inform, educate, and disseminate information to marginalised pastoralist communities with the objective of empowering them to attain social justice. Their work focuses on a number of areas, including, but not limited to: community peacebuilding and conflict resolution; small arms eradication; human rights; water projects; primary healthcare; eradication of female genital mutilation; HIV/AIDS awareness; sustainable pastoralism; natural resource management; climate change; civic education and governance; and media literacy and advocacy.