Creativity StARTS Here

Open Dialogue project is happy to announce that we managed to do the open forum with people from different faith that is Muslim and Christians. It was a very informative and engaging session where the facilitator got an opportunity to share their experiences, their challenges and how they have been able to cope with steretypes that comes with religion and class. It was great opportunity to bring together the two communities who have been at longerheads with one another since time immemorial.

As we were able to look into the issues pertaining the occurence of the post election violence of 2007/2008 in Kenya. We had stories of survivors who were able to share why they think they were attacked. Most of the respondents stated that issues related to tribe and religion contributed a lot to the war. The survivors were very open and ready to forgive one another because they images of the post elections violences were very melancholic.

It is imperative to state that the fora depicted that people from Mathare and Eastleigh have a lot in common to share in terms of their culture, talent, respect for one another and the team spirit. This are some of the things that the participants were talking about so as to kill the stereotype that exists among the christians and the muslims who live in those areas. It is common to hear that people from the slums are refered to as poor while those from Eastleigh because of the muslim community that lives in Eastleigh are reffered to as terrorist.

As as way of ensuring that people live together as brothers and sisters through the facilitators the participants were taught what it means when you treat one another with lots of respect and show some tolerance. It was agreed that the partcipants present should not view one another based on their tribe or religion but with the content of their chahracter. Another action point was that people should at all times ensure that for every action that they take they must consider the amount of reaction that their actions might cost. A united community never gets defeated and we all have to ensure that our diversity is our strength and it enables us to be what we want to be without limitations.

Whether muslim, christian, rich, poor, black or white we all belong to the human race. We are connected in one way or the other. We have to show respect and be honest with ourselves and others. The future can only be bright when we realize that we are all bound to make mistakes and we can bounce back and rectify our selves.