FANET

The key to economic development and poverty reduction in Africa is the political stability and democratization of African governance institutions. Attempts to strengthen political and economic governance structures to promote growth and human development in Africa have been dampened by high incidence of politically induced ethnic conflicts and violence. If not be prevented and managed well, they have the potential to degenerate into dreadful violence, genocide (like that in Rwanda) with far reaching developmental consequences. There is need to reserve all the positive and impressive gains that Africa has recorded in the last decade. These gains need to be harnessed and translated into better human developments and improvements in terms of freedom, human rights, health, education, income, and environmental sustainability among others.

Kenya is one key example of how politically induced ethnic conflict can lead to violence. For instance the violence in the country, sparked by disputed elections in December, 2007, led to grave consequences in various parts of the country. Families disintegrated leaving a number of people dead and forced others from their homes. Some people ended in internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps. Countless women and children were abused during and after the conflict. The victims, mostly the poor, lost their property and livelihoods with little hope for recovery and compensation or assistance. Kenya lacks adequate and elaborate institutional and organization framework and capacity to deal with such emergencies. This capacity is even more limited in terms of providing emergency humanitarian support to victims of violence and preparedness to deal and prevent violence.

The victims have no recourse to speedier justice and receive no material, morale, and spiritual support to enable them to rebuild their assets and well being, and quickly restore their human dignity. Those raped, orphaned, widowed and psychologically affected need specialised medical and psychological counselling to assist them to recovery and rebuild their lives after the crises. Currently there is neither government nor civil society capacity to provide these services to the victims of politically induced ethnic violence at individual and family levels in Kenya.

Friendly Action Network (FANET) Organization is therefore established to help fill this gap in responding to these violence acts in terms of providing material, technical, legal and psycho-social services to help these victims in Kenya. The network seeks resources to provide well targeted empowerment programs to victims of violence and to engage key stakeholders in design and implementation of response and recovery initiatives in order to promote program ownership, inclusiveness, policy dialogue and multi-culturalism.

The organization provides these services to the victims in Kenya in the interim and thereafter it will ride on the lessons and experiences gained in Kenya to provide relief and technical support to other civil society organizations working in other countries in the region.