GHR recently had the honor of hosting a group from Kenya, visiting through the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program with Global Minnesota. We shared our Inter-Religious Action initiative’s funding efforts in Kenya, and learned about the inspiring work being done by these exceptional community leaders to improve lives, build peace and counter violent extremism through youth engagement.
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GHR invests in long-term peace building efforts along the Kenyan coast through our collaboration with Catholic Relief Services, the Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics and the Malindi Catholic Diocese through a project called the Dialogue Action Project, an initiative aimed at eliminating child marriage and improving household income through community saving groups.
 
Our guests shared inspiring stories from their efforts to promote peace across religions in their communities. For example, after the 2015 terrorist attacks on Garrissa University in Kenya, Ayub Mohamud, a high school teacher in Nairobi, set up Teachers Against Violent Extremism. The organization is now an interfaith network of teachers across Kenya working to share ideas that incorporate peace, tolerance and bridge-building with students in and outside classroom. In 2016, Mahamud was nominated for the Varkey Foundation’s Global Teacher Prize for his impressive work. Mahamud is an excellent example of the importance of dialogue and inter-faith collaboration in building a more peaceful world. 

We look forward to learning more from community leaders like our visitors from Kenya, and we are energized by the efforts of these individuals to promote peace and global development. To learn more about how GHR is bridging divides through our Inter-Religious Action initiative, contact us.

Recently, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta met with traditional leaders of the Kaya community of Eastern Kenya. The discussion highlighted results from the Dialogue and Action Project (DAP), an initiative funded by GHR’s Inter-Religious Action Initiative where Catholic Relief Services (CRS) engages traditional and other faith leaders in a three-year effort to reduce child marriage.

The visit with President Kenyatta and elders involved in DAP included discussions on peacebuilding efforts to ensure security on the coast, as well as engagement in the Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics, which partners on DAP with CRS and the Catholic Diocese of Malindi. The DAP representatives advocated for government support in improving education standards on the coast and establishing affordable schools. With DAP’s focus on preventing early marriage, school retention is key to reducing vulnerability.

DAP’s goal is to delay marriage of 5,000 girls ages 9-18 years until adulthood, with targeted communities actively advocating for child protection and prevention of child marriage, and with households improving their economic situation through participation in community savings groups.
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Our partnership with CRS is already showing impressive results, and we look forward to exploring more partnerships to improve development results in Kenya and around the world. To learn more about how GHR is using partnerships to grow our inter-religious work, contact us.

National Public Radio (NPR)’s John Burnett visited the GHR grantee Catholic Relief Service to examine efforts to end child marriage on Kenya’s coast. Listen to his powerful account of the pressures facing girls and efforts to engage faith leaders in delaying marriage and stopping sex trafficking.