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HeadQuarters: KENYA CULTURAL CENTRE, HARRY THUKU ROAD P.O.BOX 43031 00100 NAIROBI
Presently the violence and hatred experienced at the end of 2007 is having great effect on the lives of Kenyans mostly young people who are vulnerable and used by politicians to achieve their goals.
Thousands of people are dying daily of hunger; others of diseases due to the causes of instabilities around the world including Kenya itself and several millions are living in unbelievable situations. More and more young people are kept without jobs and no hope at all.
NGO’s are daily lecturing on these statistics.
Governments departments are daily releasing data.
Local administrators are daily warning the people.
Yet, until now the forces of unity has tended to subject our planet to a simple order, be it for ideological, imperialistic, or economic purposes. Each of these has missed the target and left bitter traces.
It is now time to build kinship on the basis of plurality, starting with the rich diversity of mankind. Culture is essential to these endeavours, as witnessed by the scope of world heritage sites and art works and by the originality of creation, which keep uniformity at bay.
Today, several thousands will be affected for the first time with the violence.
Why don’t we (the Drum Cafe) use these diversities and cultural Medias to create awareness and sensitize the public? Get the citizens where they meet and live, create jobs to young people who are engaged in artistic work and carry the message of behaviour change to the citizens
The Drum Café Project seeks to send the message of hope and understanding to the affected and the gospel of love, respect and tolerance among civilizations and cultures in a relaxed environment full of Music, dance, acrobatics, drama, puppetry and poetry, The Drum Café project will take place in various provinces in the country Kenya with the Launch in Nairobi from the 19th of September to 25th of September 2010 dubbed The Drum Café 2010 Peace Arts festival/conference.
The power of the arts is a potential tool that can be used to raise an issue, showcase an idea, communicate a message or campaign, channel people’s attention for a good cause, change a negative perception, inspire a community and positively influence a society.
We have been inspired by the fact that all around the world arts and heritage professionals are increasingly expected to fulfil a range of functions including strategic planning, governance, development, and curation.
enyans in the age bracket of 30 years and below constitute about 75% of the countries population, forming the largest source of human resource. However, they have remained on the periphery of the country’s affairs and their status has not been accorded due recognition. Many youth in Kenya have been excluded from designing, planning and implementation programmes and policies that affect them.
Many of the youth who are productive and energetic remain unemployed continue to suffer from poor health and lack sufficient support and therefore they become very vulnerable to be used by politician to engage in violence and hatred campaigns.
After the announcement of the disputed Presidential election of 2007 in Kenya it triggered a national political crisis that divided the country on ethnic lines. It emerged that there are fundamental deep-standing divisions among the Kenyan state and if left undressed they pose as a great threat to the stability of the Kenyan nation.
The youth in Kenya, who number about 9.1 million, account for about 32% of the Kenyan population, of these 52% are female. The youth form 60% of the total Labour force but many of them have not been absorbed in the job market owing to the country’s high unemployment level.
The high population growth rate at 2.4 % in 1999 puts the pressure on available resources. The number of young people in Kenya keeps on rising. The fact that economic growth is lower than the population growth rate makes the situation worse.
There are about 25,000 graduates every year who complete their studies with no hope of getting employment. There are about 1.3 millions young people who complete standard eight and form four level of education every year.
The National Youth Policy in Kenya indicates that the youth can no longer be termed as leaders of tomorrow, they must be seen as a today’s leaders, and planning cannot continue without involving the youth, especially those who are in difficult circumstances, in all sectors of the economy. The youth have a right to participate in issues that affect their life and exploit their full potential.
The Kenyan youth needs motivation, inspiration and encouragement to pursue better opportunities in making Kenyan a better country in the World. The youths have talents energy and the will to transform the negative dark history of Kenya. The youth are the engine and the drive of reforming and changing the image of Kenya and Africa.
The Drum Café is a stepping stone and the bridge of hope for thousands of the youth of slums of Nairobi and is committed to bring hope to the Kenyan youth.
World peace is the Utopian idea of planetary non-violence by which Nations willingly cooperate, either voluntary or by virtue of a system of governance, which prevents warfare.
Many interpreters of the concept are not often political, however world peace may simply mean the resolution of global and regional conflict through non-violent means.
The plausibility of world peace tacitly relies on the assumption of rational agents that base their decisions on future consequences, which is not self-evident.
World peace has been depicted as a consequence of local, self-determined behaviours, which inhibit the institutionalization of power and ensuing violence.
The solution is not so much on the agreed agenda or an investment in higher authority whether divine or political, but rather a self-organized network of mutually supportive mechanism, resulting in a viable politico-economic social fabric.
Is peace defined as the absence of hostility, violence and conflict? Then the world peace would imply a worldwide end to violence and thus the institution that rely on threats of violence to sustain their existence, therefore there could be no law enforcement, because force is a form of conflict. Without law enforcement, there could be no laws, except those which every one voluntarily agrees to follow. Finally there could be no governments of the type that rely on threats of violence to collect taxes, maintain their borders, or govern their citizens. Considering in this light world peace goes beyond the cessation of non-state warfare and calls for dramatic changes in most of the political institutions familiar to people worldwide.
Perhaps one of the most complex concepts in human history, peace has been used to refer to everything from “absence of war” to “equilibrium” to “a utopian state of spiritual and social harmony devoid of conflict.”
These widely differing images are indicators of essential differences in ideology, culture and perceptions of history.
If we fail to use creativity as a force for social justice, transformation and articulation of human need we may unwillingly find that we are letting down the very people in whose name we work.
How often have the frustrations of violence and humiliations status led us blind outrage against each other and the real cause of course of our dilemma. There is a lesson we can learn from this: that violence is impractical and that now, more than ever before we must pursue the course of non-violence to achieve a reign of justice and a rule of love in our society, and that hatred and violence must be cast into the unending limbo if we are to survive.
The Drum Café 2010 Peace Festival will be a seven-day celebration presented by and for the various Kenyan ethnic subgroups and communities living in Nairobi and their international guests.
The Drum Café 2010 Peace Festival aims to create a safe place for all Kenyans and their international guests to value the importance of culture as a tool in conflict resolution and cultures vital role in maintaining peace in local communities, nation and throughout the world.
The Drum Cafe 2010 Peace Festival will showcase performances, presentations, workshops, displays and demonstrations of music, theatre, dance, storytelling, food, films, traditional medicines and crafts at various venues in Dandora, Kibera, Kawangware, (slum areas which all experienced terrible consequences of the last post election chaos where by neighbours turned against each other, killed and or destroying each others property) and within Nairobi city centre.
· A peace march through the Nairobi city main roads
· A two-day conference on peace in our world- providing a platform for civic and religious leaders as well as cultural, educational and community spokes people.
· A wide range of performances on different stages with tailored productions on peace.
· A screening of various films on a variety of stalls around festival venues.
· A display of art facts and other materials on peace making on a variety of stalls around festival venues.
The Drum Café 2010 Peace Festival will invite and engage the participation of young people, women, families, elders and men from Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa and around the World to come together and celebrate their shared history, their diversities identities and their common futures.
The Drum Café 2010 Peace festival will bring together Artists and cultural entrepreneurs from a broad range of disciplines as well as government department, cultural institutions, non-governmental organizations, private sector and community based organizations to strength the campaign towards achieving peace in Kenya and the world at large.
The Drum Café 2010 Peace Festival/ Conference recognize the need to bring together at a practical level diverse experiences in the arts, academics, religious, cultural, social and public sector as well as the private sector to create and forge away new and achievable methods of sustaining non-violence practices in societies.
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