Youthful preachers spreading peace in banditry-prone areas

Normalcy is slowly returning to the troubled Kerio Valley region after thirteen churches and more than ten schools were set up to bring peace and transformation in the region.

The churches are using youthful preachers to spread the Christian gospel in the banditry prone region.
Through the empowered Biblical World View Model (EBMV) and alternative livelihood programme of the Christian Impact Mission (CIM) organisation and Victory Life International Church, the government has been setting up schools and churches in hotspot areas within West Pokot, Baringo and Elgeyo Marakwet counties and supporting young children to go to school.

Initially, there were no churches or schools in the area, which contributed to it lagging behind in development.

According to CIM Project Director Bishop Jimmy Gor, a new wave of transformation is sweeping in the troubled Kerio Valley region.

“CIM Organisation, the Government and other partners with the local community have embarked on supporting education and Christianity to open up the region to avert conflicts after many killings,” said Bishop Gor at Mosyolion area in Tiaty sub-county.

Bishop Gor said that they make sure people in Kerio Valley embrace change and with the increased enrolment of the young generation in such institutions, incidents where youth get used to causing insecurity will be a thing of the past.

“We want to use education as a tool to root out banditry and cattle rustling. We deal with cultural and livelihood issues and mind set change which is paying off,” said Bishop Gor.

CIM organisation Founder and Director Bishop Titus Masika said the model begins with breaking the cycle of the kind of cultural life people have been living.

“You were born, circumcised, became a warrior and that becomes a life but now we want children to get born again, join PP1, PP2 and PP3 and continue with education not the gun,” he said.

“We aim to ensure maximum participation by the community. The community donated timber and bricks and they own the classrooms. We don’t have enough desks,” he added.

The government rolled out a massive security operation coordinated by police and assisted by the military early this year in the porous region following the killing of more than 100 civilians and 24 police officers in six months alone.

The government had termed six banditry-prone counties in the region among them Turkana, West Pokot, Elgeyo Marakwet, Baringo, Laikipia and Samburu as ‘disturbed’ and ‘dangerous’.

However, the security operation is paying off for the last seven months where guns have gone silent.
Tiaty West Sub County administrator Moses Akeno said that peace has been restored in the region adding that the county government will develop a strategy to spread transformation in the whole county.

“No single child in this land, whether Pokot, Tugen or Marakwet cannot go to school. We want to eliminate the concept of banditry once and for all and the only way is to have productive people through education and people believing in God,” he said.

The government has since embarked on reconstruction of hundreds of schools which were vandalised as a result of perennial banditry in the North Rift which will cost Sh100 million.

The worst hit schools are in Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Turkana and West Pokot counties which have seen learning paralysed for many years.

According to Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, the ongoing security operation to flush out criminals wreaking havoc in the region has achieved a lot of success.

“The money has already been released and our officers from the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) will help us in the reconstruction. We must make sure that this place remains out of bounds to bandits for the rest of our time,” Prof Kindiki said last week on a tour of the region.