Violence prevention

Greetings from the tropical rainstorms of Western Kenya.

In Canada  this year I trained for the Red Cross violence prevention programme. I held my first anti-violence workshop yesterday here in Kakamega with 46 eager participants. People came on time, the power stayed on. We were truly blessed. 

We had ‘tweaked’ the basic Red Cross powerpoint very slightly, leaving out many of the stats and inserting Red Cross videos and including some Kenyan videos especially on the topic  of sexual abuse. There was a suggestion we should mention as common forms of violence specifically FGM, child marriage and child to child marriage.

I tried throughout to emphasise the need for the community to mobilise, although by some of the comments, they are looking for more workshops and discussion groups from me.

We very much need Kenyan case studies and especially some role play scenarios on how to handle disclosures. The infra structure here on dealing with such things is not uniformly supportive, so there have to be internal procedures. I think I will need to do a ‘follow-up’ document outlining in simple steps what the parish or community should do to carry this forward. 

I know that people are deeply troubled by how to approach things through their churches and communities. Taking a strong and public stand is going to be a struggle. 

I go next Wed to do the same presentation to the theological students in Maseno (St Philip’s), at the end of October a community group who will also receive Virtues training and the second week of Nov we plan to bring together all the Anglican clergy. After that we shall reach as many of the parishes as possible while I am here. The ‘follow-up’ suggestions will be important at that time