Extremism
In an attempt to combat Violent Extremism in the society, a group of women drawn from all the corners of Meru County underwent a sensitization programme that was meant to enhance their proactiveness in preventing and countering the vice in the society.
The forum that attracted at least 50 women who were expected to spread the messages to other women in their specific regions was organised by Caritas Meru, the lead Civil Society Organisation (CSO) that is implementing the PCVE project in Meru County with the support from Global Community Engagement and Resilient Fund (GCERF) through Act, Change, Transform (Act!), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO).
Speaking during the forum, Deputy Director for Gender Ms Winfred Kagwiria who is also the head of Gender Pillar in the project said the main purpose of the forum was to train women to become champions of PCVE, by spelling out the roles that they played in the whole issue.
As a matter of fact, Ms Kagwiria said, women could be married to terrorists, they could be terrorists or they could harbour them, thus creating PCVE awareness among them is paramount.
Furthermore, she said one could not identify terrorists from their face value but they could be identified from information provided by women.
“We have also enlightened them on the signs to look out for in order to tell whether their children are being recruited into terror groups or being radicalised since they play a key role in the family unit especially to teenagers and young adults,” said Ms Kagwiria.
This was followed by the delivery of counteractive messages from extremist groups and how to be on the lookout for any behavioural changes in their children.
Discussions from the forum confirmed that active involvement of women in PCVE sensitization activities would be significant in prevention of teenagers and young adults’ recruitment into the radical groups.
The issue of women empowerment was not left out as facilitators from Women Enterprises Fund (WEF) took the women through various products offered by the fund and the procedures for successful application of the funds ranging from Sh200,000 and Sh750,000.
Representatives from the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF) run by the County Woman representative sensitised the women on accessibility of the fund, a move that enlightened majority of them especially after realising that it is usually not repaid back.
“Empowering women is also key to PCVE since women will be independent and at that state, they cannot be compromised especially by radicalisers,” said Ms Kagwiria.