Category: Uncategorized

Program: Alternative to Violence Training Venue: Kakuma Friends Church Refugee Camp Dates: August 4, 2013- August 20, 2013 Facilitators: Peter Serete, Eunice Okwemba and Bernard Onjala Kakuma is a small town located in the desert in northwestern Kenya. Historically it is believed to be where anthropologists hypothesize the human race began. The Kenyan government picked the area for use as READ MORE

Update on No “Cake Walk” for Kenya in Somalia: As you may note from my posting last Friday that was requested by Foreign Policy in Focus of the Institute of Policy Studies, it was sent out on their wire service as a progressive alternative to the mainstream media and the right-wing think tanks. As a result my article was picked READ MORE

The Institute of Policy Studies, a progressive think-tank in Washington, DC where my daughter Joy is the associate director, asked me to submit an article on the Westgate Mall attack and they published it today in their Foreign Policy in Focus (fpif.org/) Roots of Westgate: No “Cake Walk” for Kenya in Somalia When Kenya invaded Somalia in 2011, it overturned READ MORE

As I expect you have heard, there was a terrorist attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi yesterday beginning shortly after noon. Almost 24 hours later the siege is still continuing. About ten al-Shabaab heavily armed fighters (including one woman) stormed the upscale shopping center used by wealthy Kenyans and expatriates. At this time the death toll is 39 (as I READ MORE

__________________________________________________________ Note 1: For my fall speaking tour of Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, I still have open days – Oct 21 to 25 and Oct 28 to Nov 2. I’d like to fill up some of these openings. If interested, please contact me at dave@aglifpt.org. Note 2: Join the HROC Basic training in Baltimore, MD from November 17 to 19, READ MORE

Recently I have been touring the region, observing the programs AGLI partners with and discussing issues with the staff. On the one hand, I am pleased with how much the AGLI programs have and are accomplishing with limited resources. On the other hand, I look at the needs that our programs could be addressing if only we had more resources. READ MORE

I have just returned from the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwestern Kenya near the South Sudan and Uganda borders. “Kakuma” is supposed to mean “nowhere” in Swahili and it did seem like we were no longer in Kenya. When facilitator Peter Serete called me from Kakuma, he asked, “How is Kenya?” as if he were not longer in Kenya. The READ MORE

This past week a report was released on abortion in Kenya. It reported an amazingly high number of estimated abortions — 465,000. Compare this with the US, which has a population eight times that of Kenya, and had 784,507 abortions in 2009. I really have no idea how the researchers arrived at this estimate since abortion is illegal in Kenya READ MORE

Note: On August 23, Blair Forlaw posted an article on Huffington Post entitled “Children’s Libraries Seek a Sustainable Peace in Rwanda.” These libraries are supported by AGLI. This was posted under the “Good News” section. Blair Forlaw was a member of St Louis Meeting with Gladys and me, but she moved to DC and is now a member of Friends READ MORE

Here are five observations from Gladys’ and my recent two week visit to Rwanda and Burundi: Peacemaking is tough: When I was in Gisenyi, Rwanda, talking with the people we work with in Goma in North Kivu, Congo (it is too difficult for me to get a visa now to enter North Kivu as I have to get it in READ MORE