Kenya’s ethnically diverse Rift Valley province has experienced unrest since the introduction of large-scale colonial farming in the 1950s. The divisions flared into open violence following the disputed presidential elections in 2007. In 2008, the Global Peace Festival arrived in Kenya, bringing a model of interfaith and inter-cultural peacebuilding through cultural celebration and community service that is winning wide acceptance among concerned Kenyans.

In the Rift Valley GPF partners have launched ambitious character education programs addressing the roots of conflict, which have been brought to elementary and high schools as well as presented in home-based settings. The GPF-supported Sports for Peace program adopts a similar perspective, sponsoring athletic competitions that involve all ethnic groups and applying principles of good sportsmanship as a form of peace education.

On February 16, Nairobi Mayor Geoffrey Majiwa joined a coalition of prominent national youth organizations and religious, business, and elected leaders to mark the launch of the 2010 Global Peace Festival and Convention, with a renewed commitment to advance the restoration of the endangered Nairobi River.

“I am proud to support the Convention and will engage the City Council to provide its support,” Mayor Majiwa said at the inaugural event, joining some 300 youth volunteers who planted trees along the Nairobi River as part of the restoration initiative.

Kenya has won the bid to host the 2010 Global Peace Festival and Convention, to be held in Nairobi on November 17-20. International peacemakers including religious, NGO, youth, business, governmental, and other civil society leaders will participate in the Convention on the foundation of regional Global Peace Festivals (GPF) to be convened in Asia, the Americas and Africa.

The announcement was made on February 16 in Nairobi with the strong endorsement of President Hon. Mwai Kibaki in a meeting with Global Peace Festival Foundation Chairman Dr. Hyun Jin Moon and distinguished national host committee members.

President Mwai Kibaki today at his Harambee House office held talks with the Global Peace Festival Foundation Chairman Dr. Hyun Jin Moon who paid him a courtesy call.

During the meeting, Dr. Moon briefed President Kibaki on the activities of his organization particularly the Global Peace Convention set to be held in Nairobi in November this year.

Kenya - In a growing grassroots movement for peace following the disputed 2007 Kenya presidential election, YFWP-Kenya co-sponsored a soccer tournament and service initiative in the western Matunda area that brought together some 70,000 people under the banner “Come Together to Reason Together.”

Matunda is a cosmopolitan district with a population of more than 200,000, representing all tribes in Kenya. Due to strong tribal attachments, the region was particularly unsettled by the violence, economic disruption, and political controversies that attended the divisive election.

Nairobi, Kenya - Young leaders from government, academia, and the volunteer sector are invited to a ground-breaking International Young Leaders conference in Nairobi, Kenya, March 19 to 21. The conference theme is "The Role of Young Leaders in Achieving UN Millennium Development Goals and Peacebuilding in Africa."

Address to Global Peace Festival by Hon. Raila Odinga, Prime Minister, Kenya at Nairobi, Kenya, on August 29-31, 2008