Photo By Senior Airman Rachel VanZale | Security teams from around Kenya compete in the Amani Mtaani soccer match in Nairobi,...... read more read more
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Nairobi, Kenya - According to Broward College, there are over 7,000 recognized languages in the world. With 195 countries and even more cultural groups, the ability to translate complex topics such as gender equality may seem inconceivable. However, for Fauziya Ali, she sets out to do exactly that.
As the president of Women in International Security-Horn of Africa, Ali has made it her mission to promote human security and build peace by advancing gender equality and equity. At the most recent Women in Security Conference, Ali and her team, in conjunction with U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, co-hosted a unique event. They used the universal language of sports to reverberate their message and pierce through cultural, generational and language barriers.
The Women in Security Conference was a multi-day event held in Nairobi, Kenya, March 21-22, 2023. Opening day of the conference focused on discussions surrounding the region’s detrimental security issues, violent extremism and its impact on women. The “Amani Mtaani”, a soccer match which included Kenyan community leaders, various stakeholders and the Kenyan Defence Forces, headlined day two.
“Women have been promoting and engaging peace for a very long time,” said Ali. “The idea of the conference, the idea of the engagement we are having, is to actually showcase that women are critical stakeholders in the community.”
“Amani Mtaani” is a Swahili phrase which translates to “peace in the streets”. The match was used as a vessel for community engagement, bridging together youth groups and Kenyan security representatives on both a figurative and literal playing field. The entirety of the Horn of Africa, a region which spans across eight African nations to include Kenya, is strife with violent extremist organizations. These radical organizations affect men, women and the youth differently, and the overall vulnerable security climate of the Horn of Africa creates a supple breeding ground for recruitment.
The existence of extremist groups and their impact is not an issue solely relegated to the Horn of Africa. The fact that it is a world-wide epidemic requires it be tackled by world-wide communities. Special Operations Command Africa, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, has built a partnership with WIIS-HOA in an effort to combine resources and capabilities to inspire change within the region.
“The goal of the engagement is to repair relationships between security actors and communities that have been broken as both sides work to eradicate the common enemy”, said Faye Cuevas, SOCAF’s deputy chief of staff. “They are working to build back the trust necessary for the community and security actors to effectively counter extremism.”
WIIS-HOA and SOCAF both believe in order to effectively make this change with a holistic approach, it must include the ideas and efforts of women. Historically in the region, women have not had a voice when it comes to the topic of security and peace. Oftentimes, they are reduced to only serve in the capacity of matron roles. Despite over half the population being women, men are still largely the face of the government, military and police.
Ali points out that while military and police are an important facet of security, they aren’t the only subset of it. Including women in these discussions, bring about a unique perspective to the issue.
“If you go and ask a woman what security means, she’ll talk about healthcare,” said Ali. “She’ll talk about the issue of lighting. Having conversations around the different agencies woman have, help to slowly open up perceptions of what women can do.”
Both Ali and Cuevas believe sports can offer an effective strategy to begin the dialogue of change at the community level in a non-threatening way.
“Sport and diplomacy go hand in hand”, said Cuevas. “It really humanizes the issue of countering violent extremism when they can see each other face to face. It makes it easy to set up follow-on engagements once they have had this opportunity to meet in a friendly environment like the soccer pitch.”
| Date Taken: | 04.03.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 04.04.2023 02:35 |
| Story ID: | 441818 |
| Location: | KE |
| Web Views: | 87 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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