This story comes in the wake of violence that has gripped Kenya since the disputed elections of last year in our country.
One of my student’s whom I had discipled through the DNA material over the last two years felt that he needed to do something. So he mobilised a group of youths from the churches around there (Soweto/Kayole Slums) and discussed with them about the need to mobilise other youths and talk to them about the need for peace. Many of the youth who came were happy with his ideas and they felt that they needed to do something concerning peace in their community.
This student has been working under “Tumaini African Foundation” which is a community-based organisation he started to help him share God’s love with the people around him. Those members of this group are from different tribes and they felt that they needed to do something as the violence was perpetrated by the youth. So as the youth, they were better prepared to deal with the problem because it is their peers who were involved.
On Sunday the 6th of January, they gathered as the youth of Kayole Soweto slums and resolved to do all they can to be good neighbours. They decided to go door to door and preach peace and peaceful co-existence, but at the same time collect other items that they were to take to the Red Cross to distribute to the needy.
This group comprised of the youth with different political inclinations, but they decided to focus on the things that united them rather than the things that separated them. They began a campaign for peace under the spirit of one nation, one community. They sent out people three by three with each from a different tribe, this was done in order to realize the need to work together and to co-exist.
They started by talking to their immediate family members and friends; then to their neighbours, others went to the road junctions and talked to different people. The response was so good that within a very short time they were able to collect flour, vegetables, clothes, sanitary towels, cooking utensils etc.
They used mkokoteni (hand carts) to ferry the collections to a Red Cross relief collection centre. They were a group of 17 youths, and they pulled the mkokoteni to the said place but the Red Cross had relocated their Centre to another place, and so they decided to bring their message of love to the city centre.
They offloaded they two mkokotenis full of goods to distribute to needy people. At that moment the policemen arrived and accused them of wanting to loot the donated goods. My student, Brother Anthony explained that they were just offloading what they had collected and brought to give away by mkokoteni from 15 kilometres away, but the policemen were not to be deterred.
Anthony was arrested together with two others and taken to police cells. They spent a night there and were taken to court and charged with holding an ‘illegal assembly’. Thank God for the neighbours who had seen their arrest covered in the local TV station, they collected money and bailed them out and now he is in college.
The student still has a case pending in court. Anthony can’t believe that he had to spend a night in cell for being a ‘good neighbour’. He can’t believe that he has a case pending in court for doing good.
May the Lord be praised forever! |
