Marching for peace

Africa Peace Point [APP] – an umbrella organization of grassroots peace initiatives in Kenya – has organized a peace march, which will take place on 18 September in Nairobi. The chief guest will be First Lady Lucy Kibaki, who will flag off the march.

The peace march is an annual event, which enables all peace loving people to share, reflect and meditate on the year’s economic, social, political and spiritual experiences. However, this year’s event is envisaged to be bigger than the previous ones, given that it will be held to commemorate the UN International Day of Peace to be marked on 20 September.

With a theme “Building peace: Our daily call”, this peace march is envisaged to attract participants from Kenya and international collaborators. The event aims at sensitizing people in Nairobi and beyond on the necessity of peace for mutual coexistence. It is also meant to enhance peaceful coexistence and building strong solidarity and linkages in the general populace. It is an opportunity to usher in the next year in peace, unity and prayer.

The objectives of the peace march are to bring together in an open forum the civil society, schools, churches, grassroots peace initiatives, non-governmental organizations and the general public in promoting peaceful activity, to provide a forum to share and reflect on socio-economic, political and cultural matters that affect us as humanity, to bring into the public fold the children, refugee community and other marginalized members of our community and to give an opportunity to the general public to express their concern about peace issues at all levels.

The event has been organized by Africa Peace Point in collaboration with a number of organizations among them People Against Torture, Sudanese Women Voice for Peace, Guadalupe Peace Workers Association, Radio Waumini, Security Research and Information Center,

Others are A.O.S.K. Imara Center, Citizens Coalition for Constitutional Change, Coalition for Peace in Africa, Peacenet, Africa Refugee Program, Christ The King Parish Kibera, Kibera Grassroots Initiative, Peacebuilding Healing and ReconciliationProgram, DKA, Chemichemi Ya Ukweli, Nairobi Peace Initiative Africa, Fr. Renato Kizito, Amani People’s Theatre and Peace Tree Network.

The key participants are people and organizations from all walks of life that have a reason to celebrate peace. Special emphasis has been laid on organizations that deal with children, youth, refugees and peace in general as well as the Ministry of Culture and Social Services. For the peace march to be a success a number of strategies have been put in place.

These principally involve publicizing the event, mobilization of the participants and fundraising for the same. Towards these six groups of participating organizations have been constituted. The key sponsors of this event are Amani Onlus, an Italian NGO and Koinonia Community, a local organization registered in Nairobi, Kenya.

As an annual event, we hope the unprecedented cooperation between the various peace organizations will continue and be widened to eventually not only include peace organizations but other humanitarian organizations and the government.