It will take place with effect from the afternoon on Sunday 10th to the morning of Sunday 17th as Christians celebrate the Lord's passion on Palm Sunday.

The office of JPIC Franciscans Africa is a programme of the Franciscan Family Association  in Kenya with and African mandate.

A key theme of the fifth week of the Lenten Campaign Booklet distributed in the kenyan parishes is "Restorative Justice and Healing". While the country is calling for the retributive justice that is expected out of the International Criminal Court  and/or a local tribunal, we would like to make a call towards the demands of Restorative Justice.

Our Internally displaced brothers and sisters are a wound that is crying out for healing.

This is just an urgent call to action to all people of good will, to leave the comfort of our homes for a few days or hours in solidarity with our yet to be resettled, displaced brothers and sisters.

Your fraternal participation will be an expression of your solidarity with who suffer.

Once again Kenya faces life-threatening famine in some parts of the country while others parts are enjoying a surplus of grain close to rotting. The Daily Nation reported January 13, that people and livestock have died in North Eastern parts of Eastern and the North. Ironically, farmers in the North Rift valley region have no market for their maize. One of the area members of parliament, Joshua Kutuny, indicated that their constituents are crushing maize and feeding it to animals. It therefore seems evident that it is a question of distribution.

The right to food and safe drinking water was an issue raised during Kenya’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in May 2010. Franciscans International, following reports from the Franciscan family in Kenya lobbied for improved distribution mechanisms. The said recommendation was made by Spain and adopted by the government of Kenya. Under recommendation 101.93 the government of Spain recommended that the government of Kenya should ensure the equitable distribution of water and food to the entire population, especially during times of drought. The government of Kenya duly accepted this recommendation.

Adopting this UPR recommendation and favored by early warning mechanisms, Kenya should not be reporting famine deaths. Yet despite all the warnings, the government of Kenya has again been caught unaware. It was after relief agencies asked the president to declare the famine a national disaster that the government formed a committee to tackle the looming famine in particularly pastoral areas.

There was, in the last two years improved food availability and access following largely above‐normal 2009 short rains (October to December) and generally favorable 2010 long rains (March to June). Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS) network reported in November 2010 that improved availability had yielded in a drop in food assistance needs. Country‐wide, an estimated 1.2 million people required continued food and non‐food interventions to mitigate food insecurity, down from 1.6 million people in August 2010.

The FEWS network also reported that the food security status of an estimated 780,000 pastoralists, 140,000 agro‐pastoralists, and 310,000 marginal agricultural farm households was precarious. These families required continued food and non‐food interventions at least until the outcome of the then short‐rains season became clear. The rains did not last long and surely, just as had been predicted, the food security conditions in most of the eastern pastoral, southeastern, and coastal lowlands have continued to deteriorate.

The Ministry of Agriculture has advised farmers not to give up but to consider planting drought resistant crops. Yet statistics from the national Irrigation board indicate that Kenya has an irrigable potential of more than 600,000 hectares but less than 150,000 hectares have been developed. Amidst all this there are worries that the will to distribute food is lacking in flavor of importation that comes along with profits to some political players.

JPIC FA conducted training in Active Non Violence and Human Rights for youth in Eastern Africa October 10-17, 2010.  The workshop was funded by Missionszentrale der Franziskaner.

Br. Joe Ehrhardt, Executive Director of JPICFA, found the workshop very effective in enhancing the Franciscans International trainings' efforts at national advocacy capacity building. He believes our youth participants from the East Africa region were enabled to reflect and then plan on the best way to implement the learned advocacy skills tuned to the unique political/economic situations, which they face in each of their countries.

The participants were young people from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic republic of the Congo. The selection process followed the JPICFA network in the region. The young people were selected and vouched for by members of the Franciscan family in these countries following and established criterion.

A simulation exercise was held towards the end of the training. The participants prepared to demonstrate against sexual abuse in the neighbourhoods of Catholic University of Eastern Africa. Some of the young people from Rwanda and Burundi were concerned that this sort of activity could not be tolerable in their own countries.

According to Mr and Mrs Ombok Otieno, the facilitators, the reaction of the young people is an indicator that not all is well in these countries: “if young people, more than 2000 miles from home are scared of being involved in a simulation exercise for active non violence just because of the possible reprisal by their government then the peace we have in these countries is negative peace.”

One of the highlights of the workshop, however, was the arrival of the Vicar General of the Order of Friars Minor (OFM), Br Mike Perry and the General Definitor for Africa, Br Vincent Zungu (OFM) who joined just in time to celebrate the closing Eucharist with us. Br Mike was able to contextualize his homily to the particular situations our youth face in each country, using his ability to share the Gospel message speaking in both French and English as needed. It was abundantly clear that our youth were deeply moved by his enthusiasm and sincerity.