AFRICA PEACE POINT TO HOST INTERNATIONAL PEACE RALLY

NAIROBI--Africa Peace Point (APP), An umbrella organization of Peace NGOs and religious organizations in Kenya, will host the 7th Nairobi International Peace Rally on Saturday 16th September 2006 at Uhuru Park from 7.00 a.m. The rally will coincide with celebrations for the UN’s International Day of Peace and serve as a precursor to the World Social Forum – a meeting of social activists across the globe dedicated to the world’s poor - which will be held early next year in Nairobi.

According to the Director of APP Mr. Michael Ochieng’, the rally which is held annually brings together various sectors of the society, including the government, the public and civil society, to promote peaceful coexistence in the region. “We need to promote dialogue as the acceptable way of ironing out differences between communities to avoid the violent conflicts that are so endemic in Africa and which cause untold suffering and loss of millions of innocent lives,” says Ochieng’.

The theme for this year’s rally is poverty: a threat to peace. Father Renato Kizito of Koinonia, a community of lay Christians who work within marginalized groups in Africa, says, “Poverty breeds conflict. We need to promote homegrown alternatives and solutions to poverty, because they work, though the international community and African governments have systematically ignored over the years.

APP is among peace organizations within and outside Kenya who share a common desire of a world where people organize to emancipate themselves from all forms of oppression, recognize their social responsibilities, respect each other’s differences, and realize their full potential to enhance a culture of peace. A series of seminars, an eye clinic, a legal aid clinic and a girls’ football tournament will take place in the informal settlements of Nairobi as a build up to the rally.