The Wezesha Youth Initiative (WYI) has proposed measures towards a peaceful election to be carried out before the August 2022 polls.
Speaking on Wednesday during a press conference in Nairobi, the Initiative Chief Executive Officer Mr. Paul Victor said that they were at the forefront to ensure that there’s a peaceful society, peaceful community relationships and a peaceful business environment with stronger cohesion and low levels of conflicts.
He flagged out a beauty pageant contest that will take place on tomorrow, Saturday aiming to build good relations among the people and build the national value of ensuring a peaceful coexistence based on individual code of conduct in the multi-cultural society.
“The event’s main goal is to package the right information to cascade to the youth as they meet to engage in the beauty pageant and also with the help of key speakers we have invited at the event,” he said.
He added that fostering youth empowerment initiatives that promote solidarity and mitigate ethnic and religious polarization would help promote harmony, tranquility, cooperation, agreement, wellbeing, alliance and anything that will enable absence of violence in the community.
“The initiative will continue preaching peace and unity, addressing issues that are undermining peaceful coexistence, addressing issues to deal with the radicalization of violent extremism that act as a prejudice and a stereotype between religion and ethnic group and sensitive gender involvement in peace building process towards a peaceful election,” Victor said.
He added that the 2007/2008 post elections crisis which grappled the country has led to the implementation of various initiatives to try and neutralize the vulnerabilities as far as peace and security is concerned.
“This is necessitated by the fact that violence has had adverse effects on the country’s development and also on human life existence, hence scaling of peace building and conflict management interventions,” he added.
He commended the Kenya Film and Classification Board (KFCB) for bringing in more stakeholders so that the initiative strives to reach more youths across the country.
By Abdiaziz Mohamed and Alain Christian
