Marching for Children’s Rights

By Eric Sande

NAIROBI---December 11 marked a unique entry of marching for children’s rights at the heart of Kibera slums in Nairobi Kenya. The peaceful procession was organised by Koinonia Action for Peace (KAP) in collaboration with youth united for peace in Kenya (YUPK).

The day began on a chilly morning with thousands of enthusiastic children, civil rights activists, parents and the public adjusting to start off the short journey aimed at proclaiming the rights of children. The mood of the day could be read from the majority, who proudly came in white t-shirts and blue caps carrying banners with a catchy message: “All rights for all children”. The march kicked off at Nairobi’s Kibera, Kamukunji grounds, ending at Kibera DC grounds. Bands and puppeteers led the way to the terminus, attracting huge crowd on the road side in addition to putting business on a standstill.      

 Entertainment of all categories was staged at the arena, as children and public took a back seat to enjoy the rest of the day. Quite a few short speeches sprinkled here and there as the day got warmer.

Children’s representative Victor Lihanda said in his speech,” In Kenya, most of us are exploited and lured into forced labour under poor conditions. Some of us live in deplorable conditions, with little or no water and food, with no sanitary service whatsoever. Many are denied the rights to an education, just to mention but a few”.

Lihanda did not leave it at that. He suggested some interventions that were to be implemented as follows; there be a sensitization programme on children’s rights at school level, organizing forums with media and the community,  analyzing the challenges and problems of drug and alcohol sale and use, developing family life orientation programmes and embracing a conducive learning environment for all regardless of the background and disability.

The march came hot on the heels of an intensive six months process of creating awareness on the state of children’s rights in our local communities. It was achieved through workshops/trainings and meetings targeting people in the south of Nairobi. A major conference was also held in Nairobi on December 4 that deliberated on the Children’s rights issues.

Boniface Okada, KAP project manager said,” Focussing on the Nairobi slum areas of Kibera, Kawangware, Riruta and Nkaimurunya, our plan which was successful was to conduct a total of 20 workshops targeting at least 1,000 street children, and seven workshops for 210 social workers over a period of four months, which began in August and ended in early December, culminating in today’s peace march.”

“This project originated from a realization that most children and their caregivers have remained ignorant of their rights despite the enactment of the Kenya Children’s Act in 2001. The situation is even worse among Nairobi’s estimated 60,000 street children, many of whom were orphaned by HIV/AIDS, abandoned by their caregivers, or driven away from home by poverty or parental incapacity,” added Okada.

In his closing remarks, Okada gave the action plans for this coming year as follows; initiate capacity building for parents, form support groups for the poor families and also create centres for such groups, device strategies to aid in encouragement of parent-children communication, involve the media in the sensitization process to make greater impact on the society and finally to organize family life orientation forums.