Young Kenyans Speak out against Violence

After the elections that split the nation, local people from the largest tribe in Kenya, the Kikuyu’s, took arms to face the Luo’s. The conflict was caused when ruling Kikuyu president Mwai Kibaki was declared victorious after a tight election. The opposition leader from the Luo’s, Raila Odinga, went on to dismiss the vote as rigged. According to the United Nations, the violence that followed displaced 250,000 people and killed 600.

As the worst of the violence in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, seemed to calm, we at Headliners interviewed five young people to find out how the violence had affected their lives and their hopes for the future, what was being done to calm the situation and most importantly, what the young people wanted to see happen so that such an event never occured again.

Carrilus Ooko, 16, goes to a local school and has hopes of being a Physics Professor. He told us about the background to the troubles: “What I understand is that the two tribes in Kenya do not agree with each other. This is the cause of the violence that took place in Kenya and they pushed each other this way and that way for land. Some people they just desire to take action and were helping each other to kill.” He also told us that during the troubles two politicians had been killed.

17 year old Evans Ooma, who hopes to become an engineer, told us that he had been lucky not to come into direct contact with any violence, but the experience made him feel like a stranger in his own home: “It made me feel nervous, the people dying in my surroundings. I felt that it could reach me.”

When a crisis like this happens, it can be taken for granted how great an affect death, disease and violence has on the day-to-day life of young people. Gordon, 18, told us that the unprecedented violence had been very surreal and horrifying: “We have never had this type of violence before” he said, the images of “many people carrying crude weapons and lighting bonfires” had stayed with him.

As result of the political crisis many had lost friends and relatives. One such person affected in this way was Tabitha, 17, who has hopes of becoming a secondary school teacher. “I lost one of my parents, my father, during the political crisis.” After losing her father Tabitha was forced to move from a boarding school into a day school because her mother could not afford the fees on her own.

Like Tabitha many of the young people we interviewed voiced concerns over the effect the violence had on their schooling. Evans was able to return to school but still found it difficult, “It has made me fall behind. We are back but we haven’t yet completed the syllabuses.” Gordon agreed but told us that although the education system had not been restored to its original vitality, Kenyans “are optimistic.”

Donela, 15, wants to be a doctor but told us that she was afraid of going to school and being hurt by her peers. “We do not have a lot of security so when we go to school we are afraid of being attacked by young people, they may even kill us.”

Gordon also said that “the situation is still making it difficult to travel across the country.”

However, fear is not the only barrier to movement in Kenya. After the elections government services failed the country. “There was no transport, no basic supplies like food stuff and medicine,” said Gordon. Furthermore, medical aid was distributed inefficiently and Tabitha said she saw people “suffering and dying of cholera. People with Aids and HIV could not access their drugs.” Carrilus told us that even now, “only education is working” and those who “work for the government are not working right now.”

The crisis has increased pressures on Kenya’s economy. “The violence in Kenya has affected me very negatively because the cost of living is now high, it has gone up, things that I could afford last year before the election was held, I can’t get, because the prices have shot up,” said Carrilus. As a result of this, hunger is commonplace. Tabitha told us that food prices have skyrocketed, and they are at least three times as much as they were before the crisis.

The young people had their own ideas on what needed to be done to “heal and settle” the nation. Gordon told us they were in the process of doing what all Kenyans wanted most “returning the country to normal…The treaty has been signed but it is not quite there.”

Evans told us that he felt the way forward would require a “constitutional change” and Donela suggested that if needs be a re-election should occur.

Carrilus felt they could not restore peace on their own. “Kenya is one of the members of a united level, it also follows the rules of the 1950’s … the UN should come and help those who have been displaced by the violence. The chairman should come and work with the two (political) candidates so that we can get back on track, faster.”

All the young people agreed that in order to get their country back they would need “assistance from outside the country.”

Since this article was produced Kenya now has a coalition government in place, which both Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki are part of. They have embarked on a programme to resettle those who were displaced.