A three days’ forum on curbing extremism organized by the National government in conjunction with the European Union got a boost when two County Executive Committee Members from the Kiambu County Government attended.
Dr. David Kuria CECM in charge of Environment and Natural Resources and Margaret Ruinge in charge of Administration and Public Service teamed up with the participants of the forum for a grueling three days to come up with a County Action Plan that would help avert extremism in the community.
The County forum has been organized to enlighten the stakeholders on Prevention and Counter Violent Extremism (P/CVE) knowledge and fusion data management for Kiambu County engagement forum members.
The initiative, conceived in 2019 was halted after some 40 per cent of the members were trained and did not go through the entire process of being launched because of lack of funding.
However, after a series of consultative meetings the journey to revive the initiative began on September 13, 2021 with members identifying areas of concern that should be prioritized by the relevant organs.
On the first day of the meeting, Mr. David Kuria promised total support of the initiative saying the County Government would support the efforts geared towards ensuring that people in the region were not lured into extremism for whatever reasons.
Ms. Ruinge similarly pledged her support through participation so that she could identify the input for the County Government of Kiambu.
Kiambu County Commissioner Mr. Wilson Wanyanga reminded the participants that they were part of the system and that they should begin to execute the knowledge and skills in working with the security to avert the vice.
He noted that prevention was better than cure and that every like-minded Kenyan should be ready to share all information that could be used to maintain peace and ensure the Kenyan society was cohesive and lived in harmony.
“When people live in harmony, then they were able to engage in their social-economic activities with ease, therefore contributing to the general development of the nation,” noted the administrator.
The revival of the initiative comes at a time when Kenyans are recovering from the effects of Covid-19 pandemic and premature electioneering process which has been chaotic in some areas that have re-elected their leaders in by-elections.
By Lydia Shiloya
