Another Pyramid of Peace?

Kenyan elections are scheduled for March 2013. Various people in Dadamac and Minciu Sodas remember both the violence and the conflict resolution work from last time. It would seem that if we can learn lessons from last time then it would help people to plan ahead.

The initiators:

No action group or study group has been initiated yet, but a few resources have been gatherd here, following some emails people exchanged esporessing concerns.

Write-up by

Pamela McLean

The backstory:

People in Minciu Sodas were active in conflict resoluion and peace-keeping work during the terrible violence and disturbances after the last elections in Kenya. Their work was known as "The Pyramid of Peace" (PoP).

During the post-election turmoil we achieved a lot through the new approaches we were trying, despite our limited visibility, and the lack of funds. (Pyramid of Peace activists on the ground were supported with financial contributions and in other ways by their friends from many countries within Minciu Sodas. Our attempts at online fundraising were a failure. Andrius Kulikauskas who master minded the interventions by Minciu Sodas borrowed money, hoping to raise more funds afterwards. His failure to do so contirbuted to his subsequent bankruptcy.)

Rather than wait until it all happens again we can make preparations before hand. Ideally such preparations may help to avert violence. If the worst does happen and there is violence at least we will be more prepared to respond.

The catalyst:

An article by Richard Dowden - Director, RAS on Kenya: Saitoti's death and the coming battle

Timeline June 2012:

June 13th - Richard Dowden's article published
June 17th - I wrote Kenya: Saitoti's death and the coming battle - Chilling analysis by Richard Dowden - Director, RAS
June 23rd - Ken Owino and Dan Otedo responded - Responses to Kenya: Saitoti's death and the coming battle - Chilling analysis by Richard Dowden - Director, RAS (Andrius Kulikauskas also responded soon afterwards)
July 20th - I set up this space and told others.
July 21st - Andrius sent links to a wiki for 2013 Pyramid of Peace, and a full archive and overview of the original Pyramid of Peace
December 29th - removed this iniitative from the active list.

The ongoing story:

I decided that I should probably try to connect more with Richard Dowden and people like him.

Although I have been to open events organised by RAS I was not a member - so I've joined RAS.I hope it will prove to be a useful investment on behalf of my friends in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. Because I was very busy wiht other things in June (including FastTractor) I have not taken Second Pyramid of Peace further forward yet - (it's not something I can do on my own anyhow) - but have at least put it on Dadamac.net now for ease fo reference.

December 29th 2012

My connections with Kenya have reduced rather than increased during 2012 so I'm going to archive this.

Collaborators:

Those of us who were involved last time who are willing to get involved again. We need to connect with people who are potential collaborators, people who are in a position to build on what we did last time. Dadamac's involvement is to rasie visibility and help provide an online space and focus.

Future vision:

Getting a pre-election Pyramid of Peace in place. It would include:

People who are from different tribes who have strong, hight-trust relationships (such as those demonstrated last time by the Luos and Kikuyus in Nafsi Acrobats, and other people in Pyramid of Peace)
People building strong relationships with tribal elders who can influence the youths (as last time)
A pyramd structure to push money and information to appopriate people through the phone network - continued payments depending on information received back.(as last time)
Phones, and credit for phones, and credit to access Internet
Collaborators - such as a phone company (and various innovative projects working elsewhere)
People in positions of influence to raise the initiative to a new level
Andrius for his creative problem solving and ideas for strategy.
An analysis of what worked well last time and what could have worked better
Putting in place anpther chat-room space, with the good features of the now closed Minciu Sodas worknets chatroom as used by Pyramid of Peace
Funds and fundraisers

Learning issues

This initiative is an attempt to learn from the past and use that knowledge and experience to have a positive impact on the future. However, it would only be relevant if people invovled on the ground were actively looking to revive it.

Organisation

Dadamac Open Knowledge