Peace Sucess stories 

Before the CPS Program in Bungoma, young people weren't aware of non-violent ways to address their issues. We resolved to demonstrations and protests, which ended up being fatal. Young people were losing their lives, and the business community counted losses from looting. We simply didn't know the best channel to present our grievances.

The coming of Pamoja for Transformation changed everything. Through their trainings, we were equipped with the skills and capacity to meaningfully engage with duty bearers for real impact.

As a Bungoma Governance and Peace Advocate, I put these skills into action by convening a Roundtable Stakeholders engagement meeting in Webuye to discuss critical issues affecting the healthcare sector. Through this dialogue, we deeply understood the challenges and co-created solutions and action plans to improve service delivery in local facilities.

The results of this new approach are clear:

(i) Improved relationship with Duty bearers.
Today, young people can easily approach any duty bearer to present their issues and are warmly welcomed and listened to, a stark contrast to the past. Our new advocacy strategies have proven effective and seen positive impact.

(ii) It has promoted inclusion in Decision Making.
We've seen a significant increase in the number of young people being represented in various sector and Technical Working Groups in the county. This amplifies our voices in critical decision making. Directors who chair crucial committees, having engaged with us in trainings, now call us to county functions and meetings to give our inputs.

Personally, I've grown in skills development and built strong networks courtesy of the CPS project. For the community, issues can now be easily addressed through the vital link built between duty bearers, advocates, and the community.

Looking ahead, we are committed to:

Building on networking and partnerships to continue the project objectives.

Developing strategies for resource mobilization to support the initiative.

Using our skills to train other upcoming youth advocates in peaceful advocacy.

Continuously engaging with duty bearers to maintain our relationship and mobilizing resources to ensure the sustainability of this transformative work.

Before the P4T dialogues, Bungoma County was characterized by mistrust between citizens and local leadership. Political intolerance, exclusion from public participation, and poor service delivery fueled frustration. Young people were often used as instruments of violence rather than being empowered as agents of change in peacebuilding and governance.

This was the reality I sought to change. After participating in the training, I led a non-violent civic awareness campaign in Lwandanyi Ward. These forums created a seismic shift from political confrontation to constructive dialogue. Suddenly, youth began actively participating in barazas, budget hearings, and ward development meetings. Local leaders started consulting youth groups before making decisions, and women and marginalized community members gained the confidence to speak up.

I also organized a Business Community Dialogue Forum, bringing together business owners from across the region and duty bearers from the County Departments of Trade, Environment, and Public Health. We discussed critical issues like waste management, food hygiene, and revenue collection, clarifying mandates and building understanding.

Using my new facilitation skills, I mobilized youth leaders to create safe spaces for dialogue. We partnered with CBOs and the local administration, held peace barazas, and used social media advocacy to promote non-violence. The result was a gradual change in behavior across the community.

Personally, my transformation was profound. Before, I handled issues with anger and my concerns were ignored. After the training, my non-violent approach has earned me the trust of duty bearers. I gained powerful facilitation and advocacy skills that have made me an effective champion for my community.

Across the community, the impact is undeniable. Youth have shifted from political violence to civic participation, influencing inclusive decision-making. The community now understands how to raise issues using this approach and knows the guiding principles of government, especially those from minority communities in Sirisia and Mt. Elgon.

Looking ahead, we are strengthening networks with community leaders, CSOs, and county departments. We plan to roll out civic education in schools and youth groups to maintain the non-violence momentum. Most importantly, we are forming a legally recognized consortium, the Bungoma Governance and Peace Advocates Forum, to ensure our advocacy is sustainable and powerful.

Before the dialogues, the state of services in Nyalenda was a source of great frustration. The local Health Centre often lacked essential drugs, forcing patients to seek costly alternatives. The streets were plunged into darkness by malfunctioning lights, fueling insecurity and fear at night. Waste piled up in open areas, creating unsanitary conditions, and community trust in service delivery was fading fast.

This was the Nyalenda I knew. But immediately after our training with Pamoja for Transformation, everything changed. I joined dialogues between adversarial groups and duty bearers where we identified our key challenges. For Nyalenda, I led efforts to convene specific sessions addressing the critical issues of drug shortages, broken streetlights, and poor waste management, ensuring community voices finally reached the right offices.

The results of this peaceful engagement have been transformative. Nyalenda Health Centre now has a consistent medicine supply, drawing more patients and ranking among the highest-earning facilities. New floodlights brighten the market, while repaired streetlights have restored safety at night. Even a once-open and dangerous power meter near Nyalenda Pharmacy, where children used to play, was secured after it was raised in the dialogue, preventing possible accidents.

The training sharpened my skills in issue identification and peaceful engagement. I worked with fellow Peace Advocates to mobilize residents, gather evidence, and invite duty bearers for structured dialogues. Through open discussion and diligent follow-ups, service gaps were acknowledged, action plans were made, and quick wins were implemented visibly.

Personally, I have grown into a confident advocate who can face duty bearers without fear. I have learned that peace and accountability thrive when citizens speak up constructively. Community-wide, Nyalenda now enjoys safer, cleaner spaces and better healthcare access—proof that peaceful dialogue can turn frustration into lasting, practical improvements.

Looking ahead, I will keep creating safe spaces for dialogue, mentor youth in civic engagement, and personally monitor service delivery to ensure our gains endure. Together, as the Kisumu Peace and Accountability Advocates (KIPAA), we will track service delivery progress, hold quarterly follow-ups with duty bearers, and empower more youth to participate in governance.

Before our intervention, the state of peace and service delivery was poor. Rates of insecurity were high, and street lighting in crucial public places like markets and major roads in Kisumu was either absent, dysfunctional, or vandalized, leaving communities in darkness and danger.
Empowered by new training, I stepped into the light. I participated in multiple community dialogues to address these pressing concerns, engaging with young people on security issues and waste management opportunities. I sat down with duty bearers and concerned citizens in meetings specifically focused on the poor lighting plaguing our public areas.
These learning experiences have profoundly changed me. I have fully embraced non-violent approaches, particularly negotiation and dialogue, in dealing with family issues. I now focus on building consensus and using a give-and-take method to achieve a win-win outcome, a complete departure from my past combative style.
This transformation extends to my community work. Where I manage a lot of advocacy, these lessons are now our core strategy. We now ensure that we always give dialogue a chance first, keeping all our actions non-violent. Even when engagements with duty bearers become tense, the training equipped us with the art to negotiate amicably.
We actioned this by spearheading multi-stakeholder initiatives across the sub-counties, including community engagements, virtual meetings, and advocacy through petitions and letters to address issues that breached peaceful co-existence.
For the future, my first commitment is to live as a true champion of peace through my actions. I will continue these engagements through our KIPAA network and within my own organization. We are keen to keep this peace banner alive, especially during electioneering periods, and will seek partnerships to push this gospel together.
The most significant change is that, personally, I have become a peace champion. For the community, we have tested and proved that advocacy can be successfully delivered through dialogue. We have shown that so much can be achieved when we approach dialogue in good faith, resolving disputes that once grew into conflict simply because they were not handled well.

In Bungoma County, the pathway to youth empowerment was blocked. Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) were crippled by poor funding, understaffing, and a lack of management policy. Most critically, the Bungoma County Youth Development Policy 2023 remained non-operationalized, a document full of promise that gathered dust, leaving youth without a clear pathway for engagement.

Faced with these systemic challenges, I knew that change required a strategic, non-violent approach. After my training, I moved systematically: I identified and ranked these peace and service delivery challenges, pinpointing key decision-makers. I then drafted and submitted a formal letter of concern as a primary advocacy tool and diligently followed up.

To amplify the effort, I wrote a concept note that sparked a series of actions: stakeholders' dialogues on VTCs, online engagements to highlight the issues, and a celebration of International Youth Day to champion local solutions and create awareness.

The results of this focused, non-violent engagement have been transformative. There is now a newfound willingness to increase VTCs' capitation and develop a VTC regulation policy. Most importantly, the Bungoma County Youth Policy 2023 is finally being operationalized, meaning youth are poised to take a leading role in their own development. Decision-makers are now ready and willing to engage positively with young people, replacing the futility of street protests with the power of structured dialogue.

This intervention led to increased awareness of these challenges and fostered a collaborative approach to creating solutions.

Personally, my capacity to promote peace and service delivery improved immensely. My understanding has shifted entirely; I once saw change as a distant, bureaucratic process, but now I know that through collaborative effort and strategic communication, we can hold leaders accountable and drive real change. I have transitioned from a passionate observer to an active participant.

For sustainability, we will form a youth oversight committee to monitor policy implementation. We will continue to engage with both duty bearers and youths to ensure the momentum is not lost. As the Bungoma Governance and Peace Advocates Forum, we will form a consortium to involve other counties, ensuring community involvement in creating change through structured engagement.

In Kisumu East, a cycle of insecurity was fueled by unemployment and misinformation. Vulnerable youths, consuming information "designed to cause confusion," became obstacles to accountability, leaving the larger electorate without answers. As a peace advocate, I witnessed this firsthand and knew something had to change.

That change began with Pamoja for Transformation. After being trained on non-violent accountability strategies, I was equipped to spearhead a movement. I immediately began mobilizing the community, especially young people, to inform them on the tenets of social accountability.

My mission was clear: to turn confusion into clarity. I started accessing county projects from the ward level up, sensitizing youths on the documents needed for a social audit, and forming community-led discussion groups with various stakeholders. This wasn't a solo effort; it was a collective of peace champions from across all five Kisumu sub-counties, empowered by P4T and engaging in crucial dialogues with duty bearers.

The results of this non-violent approach have been significant. We have seen:

Improved information uptake by the public.

A great increase in engagement between youths and duty bearers.

The successful improvement of the lighting system, a major contributor to insecurity, leading to a better overall security status in the county.

Increased youth participation in peace-building through collaboration.

Most importantly, the acceptance by duty bearers to hold collaborative engagements and implement agreed-upon actions.

Personally, this journey has transformed me. My understanding of peace-building has grown immensely, and I can now confidently approach duty bearers with petitions or open letters to seek clarifications and conduct effective follow-ups.

Our work is not done. Looking ahead, I intend to engage even deeper in addressing public resource pilferage by engaging duty bearers meaningfully. Together with my fellow Peace Champions and with P4T's support, we will develop community-oriented peace groups to spearhead non-violent programs tailored to promote peace among the youth.

This is the power of peaceful accountability—turning vulnerability into strength and confusion into a clear path forward for our community.

"We replaced confusion with clarity and misinformation with social audit. By empowering our youth with the tools of peaceful accountability, we turned them from obstacles of insecurity into champions of change."