Press statement by “Walk of Hope” activist

29/06/2015

Press Statement

From: The participants of the Walk of Hope

Re: In quest for hope; the 1000km walk to restore hope in Northern Kenya.

On Saturday 13 June 2015, the walk of hope commenced from Tana Bridge in Garissa with the eventual goal of walking 1000km distance to Border Point One in Mandera.

The walk started with fanfare with hundreds walking the first eleven kilometers to Modokarey.

Eventually however, only seven walkers and 3 support crew remained to begin the actual walk.

The walk was initiated to restore hope in a time of uncertainty when insecurity, underdevelopment, disunity and dependence have enveloped the region used to be called North Eastern Kenya.

The eventual vision of the walkers is to awaken the people of the Garissa, Wajir and Mandera to assume responsibility for their security, self-reliance and unity. With this goal in mind, the walk of hope is not a journey of criticism, whining, finger-pointing and blame apportionment. Yes we cannot escape the tragic history of the Somali people of Kenya. We are not engaging in feel-good journey of white-washing the terrible historical injustices that have been meted out on the people of the North. We cannot fail to note the sheer lack of leadership in resolving perennial clan clashes and massive underdevelopment that has become an eyesore. We note that we walked on the “the highway of sand” for 352km, a long stretch of sand cut into shape by the wheels of tough trucks. We cannot also fail to notice the current state of fear in the Northern counties, the militarization of the region, the assassinations of chiefs, the disappearances of many residents and the extra-judicial killings that have become the norm in the region.

We understand terror and war of terror are wreaking havoc on the people of the North. We believe all these issues need to be acknowledged, however we need to move forward and not be stunned into silence by all the challenges.
The walk of hope is a perception changing journey. It is a journey designed to infuse ideas in the minds of the inhabitants of the North. It is a walk undertaken to attempt paradigm change. When the walk of hope is over, we believe the people of the North will become united, will shun disputes emanating from colonial borders and political ambitions. We are confident that clan clashes can be resolved once and for all. We believe by the time the walk of hope is over, professionals including doctors, teachers, and engineers who hail from the region will come back to Wajir, Garissa and Mandera and offer their vital services. We believe self-reliance will take root with communities deciding and implementing projects for their own use including public toilets, social halls and classrooms. Community must attempt to use their available resources to solve their problems and not be dependent on existing institutions that have failed to act on the challenges in the first place.

We are walking because we think the malady of the education and literacy system can be resolved through volunteerism. We are confident that the people of this region will wake up and undertake massive literacy efforts to lift our people from imposed illiteracy. Our people are literate, they can read and write their own language using Arabic script, the dugsi and madrasah education system has ensured that nearly 60% of the population can write Arabic script and that is important. Paradigm change dictates using this state of existence to enhance literacy by introducing the learning of Somali and Borana languages using the Arabic scripts. We believe our people are unconsciously literate and just need a nudge to use their potential to change their state. This needs determined leadership that will deviate from the beaten path and open up the eyes of the inhabitants to new ways of thinking.

We believe the walk of hope is one way of pioneering new thinking.

The walk is not easy; there is constant concern of insecurity, sometimes it is a logistical nightmare especially taking into consideration the fact that this walk is not organized by any institution; government or non-government, for profit or non-profit. The walkers are not sponsored by anyone, it is labor of love, it is the height of volunteerism. The walkers lived and were able to cover the long distance between Garissa and Mandera because of the generosity and goodwill of the people living in settlements on the way.

The walk also incorporated sensitization of the population and observation of the state of education and health facilities of the settlements on the road. As such we can make observations on the state of these facilities. The walk also demonstrated the relative safety and security of the region. The participants are walking across the length of the North East and have not encountered any threat to security.

From our interactions with residents in the region, we can make observations. The first observation is that the main threat to security in the region is not terror related but clan clashes that claim lives and displaced people. This source of insecurity is brought about mainly by politics which promotes perceived grievances of communities like loss of land to rival clans or creation of unsustainable settlements inhabited by specific sub-clans and families. Colonial borders have created virtual prisons in the region where people cannot travel or settle where they wish. We also discovered that clan clashes are an expensive affair, the typical cost of killing one person in a clan war is sometimes as high as a million shillings. Clan clashes can be prevented through free association of clans, creation of standing peace committees consisting of all clans and amicable sharing of resources.

We also observed that the perceived insecurity in Northern Kenya has driven the education system to the ground even before the latest spate of attacks in the region. Schools were terribly understaffed even prior to the latest killings of non-local Kenyans. The fear of more attacks drove away the few number of TSC employed teachers from schools in the region. Two important matters stand out from the state of affairs, first there were no TSC teachers in many schools in the first place and second non-local PTA teachers have stayed in their stations in spite of the perceived insecurity. It is also worth noting that most non-local healthcare workers, builders, artisans and businessperson have not been scared away by fear of insecurity. There seems to be a particular problem with the TSC teachers.

We also observed that generally many settlements have functioning clinics and health centres. The cross-cutting concern in all the villages we visited was lack of coordination in the supply of drugs, shortage of personnel and scarcity of space. We also observed that there was low uptake of hospital delivery and many centres lacked HIV testing kits. We believe these are not insurmountable challenges. We acknowledge that tremendous efforts have been put into trying to improve the healthcare system especially in Wajir County but gaps are inevitable under this kind of environment. We were shocked to happen on new hospital wards that have already been condemned due to fear of collapse.

We observed that in many of the settlements in the two counties we walked lacked fresh drinking water, in many places, the water is saline and not suitable for drinking. Some settlements were purely dependent on water trucking which we thought makes their life too expensive.

We were rather pleased to observe that the more organized a community is, the more proactive it is in attempting to solve its problems. Communities have employed teachers to fill the shortfall resulting from the existing shortage of teachers. Communities have built staff quarters for their teachers and communities undertake policing and justice system in areas where governmental authority is absent.

It is our recommendation to the members of the northern community that they empower themselves and get out of the culture of dependency.

We need to instill volunteerism in the youth and enhance it to cover both the basic education system and adult literacy. We believe that those who know should teach and those who don’t should learn. We ask the county governments to put their weight behind this initiative.

Going forward, we are departing for Mandera tomorrow Tuesday, 30 June, 2015. We have been receiving security concerns from our friends, families and even from persons in the know. We know the risk of insecurity in the region we are taking on from here. We however understand that Mandera needs the walk of hope more than the other two counties. We are aware of the challenges the County has faced in the last few years. We are ready to walk across the county and demonstrate that the communities that inhabit the region as just as good or better than the communities we have walked amidst who gave us unparalleled hospitality and accepted our message. However, we will do risk assessment on a day by day basis and will decide on our next step depending on that assessment.

It is our appeal that the community of Northern Counties espouse the ideals of the walk of hope and change their circumstances. We need to move away from the mediocrity of the past and carve a better future for ourselves.
We are grateful to the Kenya RedCross for providing us with First Aid and Ambulance services. We would like to thank the families and communities that welcome us on the road, accommodated and fed us. We are grateful to friends of Walk of Hope who donated various items to us for our comfort and the committee in Nairobi that is actively managing the walk in terms of logistics and communications: Hon. Abdikadir Ore, Hon. Mohamed Hussein (Qaras), Dr. Abdinassir Khalif, Ahmednadhir Omar. We would like to thank the owners and management of Habaswein Eco Resorts and Wajir Hilton Palace for according us accommodation and relaxation in their premium hotels. Finally, we are grateful to the various leaders, MCAs, CECs and Chief Officers of both Garissa and Wajir Counties who assisted us in one way or the other, not forgetting members of the media fraternity for their coverage of walk.
Thank you,

Salah Abdi Sheikh, Noordin Badel Tube, Ahmednoor Salah, Salah Mohamed, Fuad For the participants of the Walk of Hope
Abdirahman, Ali Doll, Siyad Osman Abdi, Abdirizak Abdullahi Salat.