Role Of Youth & Women In Peaceful Elections Campaigns

On the 29th of November, the Executive Director of The Youth Café, Mr. Willice Onyango, spoke at a forum organized by Engage Jamii Initiatives in partnership with the US Embassy in Nairobi.  The program focused on the “Role of Youth and Women in Peaceful Election Campaigns” in Kenya. 

The live event aimed at conflict prevention and resolution, increasing youth participation in decision-making through training, art competitions, focus group discussions, and media outreach.

The Youth Café, as a youth-led and youth-serving organization, works with young men and women in Kenya and around Africa to advance youth-led approaches toward achieving sustainable development, social equity, innovative solutions, community resilience, and transformative change.

Other speakers that graced the event were Angela Oatis Ashby, Rukiya Mwinyi, Fatuma A. Adan, and Fatuma Kamene Juma.

If you happened to miss the live event, listen in to get more insights.

Notably, here is a brief of the event.

The event moderator, Rukiya Akinyi, started by inviting Angela Ashby. Angela pointed out that although in 2010, the Kenyan constitution introduced a legal framework to support increased participation of women and youth, women still represent only 9% of elected officials while youth still encounter many barriers to their involvement. For this reason, the US embassy is more than happy to support youth and women who choose to exercise their voices towards the betterment of communities and their societies.

Angela then introduced Fatuma Adan to talk about the role of women in peaceful campaigns and Willice Onyango to address the role of youth in peace and participation in democratic processes.

Willice noted that for this reason, it is vital to see youth, not as agents of conflict and destruction, but as agents of peace, intercultural and interreligious dialogue, and as advocates for social cohesion in their communities.

However, he relayed that this comes with a spectrum of challenges calling for the enhancing of structures to promote their participation in peacebuilding narratives will have a subsequent effect of involving their contribution to civic engagement, with decisions and activities affecting their well-being.

Therefore, this summarizes The Youth Cafés stand for youth as agents of peace in the Kenyan democracy. There is undoubtedly a need to generate a culture of peace and a conflict-free environment among the youth, who are agents of peace, especially those that have experienced peace first-hand.

Willice also cited The Youth Cafés recent contribution to a book, Securitizing Youth - Young People's Roles in the Global Peace and Security Agenda. The book discusses the link between digital media and the growing role of personal, political, ethnic, religious, and violent radicalization in political groups.

The Youth Café works on an overarching goal around youth inclusion in the democratic process to increase the number of youth participating in electoral processes now and in the future, to catalyze intergenerational power-sharing and co-leadership.

Fatuma Adan then shared on advancing regional and global security and the role of women. Her concerns being, that although women make up half of the world population, there is little engagement and involvement of women in peace processes. The United Nations security council resolution 1325 talks of the inclusion of women in these processes. Making it compulsory rather than optional, however, women are excluded from actual discussions.

She focused on under-representation causes in global and regional security, noting it is almost like a closed male club. Although Kenya ratified UN resolution 1325, the gaps are still in existence. There is a need for the inclusion of women perspectives which are often overlooked, with security structures being water-tight for women inclusion.

Fatuma Kamene then took over and opened the discussion to participants for a Q&A session. One interesting question was, although youth are playing their part to ensure peaceful elections, what is the guarantee that we would not go back to past events of violence? And what mechanisms should be put in place to ensure peace and security issues?

Fatuma Adan responded by urging youth to have proper negotiations with law enforcement officers to ensure peace in their involvement and engagement during campaigns and elections.

Willice Onyango added by encouraging youth and women to work together in addressing hotspots and underlying drivers of violence during elections, like youth access to employment and livelihoods, that enable them to function as young adults and forestall violence perpetrated towards women. 

His closing remarks urged the youth to be brokers rather than breakers of the peace.

The event then adjourned with a vote of thanks from Fatuma Kamene.

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