It’s A New Dawn

Kumekucha

The first program in Kenya, GSN incorporates a healing-centered peacebuilding approach to address complex and protracted violence. From 2017-2019, we implemented Kumekucha: It’s a New Dawn, a social healing program, for the prevention of Violent Extremism (VE) in areas along the coast of Kenya and in Nairobi.

These areas were selected because they are local recruiting zones for al-Shabaab and suffer from various forms of instability including poverty, gang violence, and sexual and gender-based violence. The causes of VE are widely debated; while poverty, ideology, injustice, marginalization, and oppression are all cited as possible causes, none of these factors can be said to predict VE.