"Let peace begin with me": Peace campaign review

A representative from the electronic media receiving a token of appreciation for partnering with UNIC in the peace messages campaign 2011

( Nairobi, 15 November 2011 ) -The United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Nairobi initiated a peace campaign through mobile phones from 13 September to 31 October 2011. The initiative was to encourage and remind as many people as possible from all over Kenya of their responsibility to maintain peace in the country.

UNIC, in collaboration with a local Information Technology company, organized an event on 10 November 2011 to review the campaign and have first hand information on how the initiative impacted on the population. In addition, the vent was meant to appreciate, acknowledge and encourage various partners and the public to play their role in creating peaceful communities for a better future.

During the event, UNIC reiterated how peace was the UN’s mission and its day-to-day quest and thus the campaign was a way of emphasizing its importance. Without peace there is no development and without development there is no peace. One participant agreed, “…without peace, our lives are very limited... Peace gives hope”.

According to statistics revealed at the event, for a period of two months in which the initiative was scheduled, a total of 47,300 people were reached on all the four local mobile phone networks in Kenya. Apart from the messages provided by UNIC to all participants through the number “2090”, the initiative had a warm reception with the public actually sending their own peace messages that they wanted to also share with others.

During the event, three participants were picked from the floor to share with others what the initiative meant to them. All of them referred to the initiative as a healing process following the post election violence in the country in 2007-2008. Peace, they reminded everyone, should start within and underlined the role of the social media as a catalyst of peace.

Mr. Dickson Magotsi from the National Steering Committee on Peace Building and Conflict Management Secretariat in the office of the President talked about the new platforms that the Government is using to maintain peace. The platforms include the use of social media in the provision of early warning on impending conflict by texting messages through the number “108”. The number is toll free and any message should be able to provide enough information to enable an easy response. He expressed the Committee’s and other stakeholders’ interest to continue with UNIC Nairobi’s peace initiative at another level.

Through a poem by Christopher Sakwa which was recited by a representative from the Mwelu foundation, a rhetoric question was posed, “what is peace?”

The peace messages initiative coincided with the 30th anniversary of the International Day of Peace which falls on 21 September each year. The International Day of Peace was designated by the General Assembly in a resolution in September 2001, when it was decided that beginning in 2002, this Day would be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, and an invitation to all nations and people, to honour a cessation of hostilities during the day. The resolution invited all Member States, organizations and individuals, to commemorate the Day in an appropriate manner, including through education and public awareness and to cooperate with the United Nations in establishing a global ceasefire.