By Talley Diggs | Peace Fellow
Through GlobalGiving, The Advocacy Project raised $6,680 to donate heifers to Children Peace Initiative Kenya’s Heifers for Peace conflict resolution program. The Advocacy Project and Children Peace Initiative Kenya (CPI Kenya), a community-based peacebuilding organization, have been partners since 2015--working towards ending tribal conflict in northern Kenya.
During the summer of 2017, I was deployed as a Peace Fellow by The Advocacy Project to Kenya to work with CPI Kenya and to raise funds for the Heifers for Peace program. I worked with local partners at CPI Kenya where I studied the conflict, assessed opportunities for peacebuilding within pastoralist communities, planned the Heifers for Peace program, identified beneficiaries, created a fundraising campaign through GlobalGiving, and strategized donor outreach.
Funds raised for Heifers for Peace will go towards the purchase and transpotation of 25 heifers for 50 Pokot and Samburu families (participants of CPI Kenya’s children peacebuilding model) to share.
The target community for this project is Samburu and Pokot pastoralists residing in Samburu County. For generations, these tribes have feuded over resources such as grazing pastures and watering holes needed to sustain their livestock herds. Competition for resources and cattle rustling has resulted in perennial conflict, which has stunted the economic development of the region and resulted in self-segregation of the two communities.
To transform cattle from sources of conflict to incentives for mutually beneficial peace, CPI Kenya created the Heifers for Peace program. One child from each tribe has been paired to build a friendship through CPI Kenya’s Peace Camp, Twinning for Peace, Holiday Exchange, and Family Homestay programs. One heifer will be donated to the paired Pokot and Samburu children’s families to share. CPI Kenya’s conflict resolution model aims to transform the conflict by building trust between the communities through shared heifers as an economic incentive for peace.
In addition to covering the cost of buying the heifers, funds will be used for the identification and mobilization of beneficiaries, who will receive the heifers through a formal ceremony. Also, funds cover the cost of transport for the heifers as well as transport for CPI Kenya’s staff to Samburu County to prepare and present the heifers.
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