WELL, I’ll be. Kenyan Alice Wairimu Nderitu flew all the way from Nairobi Wilson Airport (WIL) to Manila and eventually to Cotabato’s Awang Airport, a distance of 9,750 kilometers. Compare that to the distance from Batanes to Jolo Island, the furthest end-to-end of northern to southern Philippines, a mere length of 1,630 kilometers.
Alice sent me a private message over Facebook the other week to inform me that she’s in Manila and that she’ll be flying to “Catubato” (Cotabato).
Why she’ll be flying in Mindanao, I can only guess. She didn’t volunteer any information so I just kept my peace.
On the other hand, I’m not dense. Alice was assistant facilitator to Ukrainian Roman Koval’s during the 2009 International Human Rights Training Program annually held by Equitas, the International Centre for Human Rights Education in Montreal, Canada. I was with Group 6 consisting of participants from Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Aside from being human rights educators, Roman and Alice are mediators. I readily connected with both since I’m a human rights advocate and a mediator myself.
In fact, Alice is currently senior advisor at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, an independent mediation organization that helps improve the global response to armed conflict, where she advises on two armed and violent conflicts: one in the Plateau State of Northern Nigeria and the other on the Sudan and Southern Sudan border. She is currently working with the peace process in Addis Ababa.
So, Genius, there’s no need to ask why Alice flew all the way from Kenya, her home country, to Cotabato, Philippines. Human rights, mediation on armed conflicts, Alice is described in a Kenyan website as a “peace builder and human rights educator, has been a commissioner of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission in Kenya. She previously headed the Human Rights Education Department of t he Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, pioneering the drafting of Kenya’s first curriculum for public officers on human rights in Kenya.”
On top of that, Alice is a member of the Women Waging Peace Network
and has been co-chair of Uwiano Platform for Peace, a conflict prevention agency that brings together six groups: the National Cohesion and Integration Commission; Kenya Police; the National Steering Committee for Peace Building and Conflict Management, which houses the District Peace Committees; UN Women; the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission; and PeaceNet-Kenya, a network of more than 500 NGOs. Ms. Nderitu is also a convener of the Concerned Citizens for Peace, a group of elders mediating between Kenya's political leaders at the highest levels.
Elders? As in tribal elders of warring Muslim tribes? Heck, I can take a hint. And Alice is most welcome to be in the country.
Moreover, Alice sits on the boards of the Life and Peace Institute in Uppsala University (a peace-building NGO) and the Independent Medical Legal Unit, a human rights NGO as well as the East African Centre for Ethics and Philanthropy. She is a member of Resolution to Act, a program of the Institute for Inclusive Security, a program of the Hunt Alternatives Fund for Women Mediators, Washington, DC.
And oh, Alice has an MA in Armed Conflict and Peace Studies from the University of Nairobi. In her case, though, she has the theory and the practice on conflict resolution.
Proof of the pie? Alice was named the 2012 Woman Peace Maker Of the
Year by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego, California, USA. She is a Transitional Justice Fellow at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in Cape Town, South Africa, and is also a Commonwealth 2004 Human Rights Fellow.
So, Alice, Mabuhay! And thanks for taking the time from your busy schedules to help in the country’s human rights defense and resolution of the armed conflict.
*****
(bqsanc@yahoo.com)