CWS expanded appeal: Kenya post-election civil unrest

The humanitarian situation in Kenya remains uncertain and tense in the wake of continuing violence that has displaced more than 300,000 persons and killed at least 800 following the disputed December 27 national elections. Among the worst-affected regions is Kenya's Rift Valley area. Fighting has in part been attributed to inter-ethnic tensions.

Last week, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced that feuding political parties have agreed to a peace plan to end the violence -- a four-point framework for negotiations which might end the violence by mid-February, the BBC reported. The various sides met again today (Feb. 4) after a weekend of violence that resulted in seven deaths.

CWS REPONSE: This expanded and updated appeal elaborates the CWS response which began in early January when, through our local partner, the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church (KELC), CWS began distributing emergency assistance at camps in the capital of Nairobi. (This appeal includes response activities undertaken in the relief phase, as well as anticipated longter-term response activities.)

Church World Service and other Action by Churches Together (ACT) International members and implementing partners -- the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Norwegian Church Aid, Dan Church Aid, Diakonnie Emergency Aid, Christian Aid, Lutheran World Relief, the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK), the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya (ELCK), the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church and Free Pentecostal Fellowship of Kenya (FPFK) -- are collaborating to provide humanitarian services to displaced and affected persons in the areas of the country most affected by the violence.

This overall ACT response is providing emergency food and non-food items to about 30,334 vulnerable households affected by the post election violence in IDP camps in the central Rift, North Rift and Nyanza /Western regions.

This includes supplementary feeding for those five years or younger and elderly; providing water tanks and distributing plastic latrine slabs in targeted IDP camps; providing tents and sheeting to vulnerable groups in the targeted IDP camps especially newborns and their mothers and elderly persons; support provision of psychosomatic assistance to vulnerable groups traumatized by the violence; support for economic recovery for targeted small scale businesses destroyed during the violence in Nyanza, especially in Kisumu City; and facilitating rehabilitation and re-construction.

For its part, CWS efforts, in concert with our implementing partners the NCCK and KELC, focus on Kakamenga, Turbo, Mumias, Mt .Elgon, Mombasa and Kamoi, where the NCCK works, and the Mathare slums, site of KELC efforts.

The CWS-supported work of the NCCK focuses on assistance to 2,200 persons, with a response that includes food distribution, supplementary feeding, shelter reconstruction for 100 households, psycho-social support, trauma healing, hygiene and sanitation efforts, community infrastructure re-construction and food security.

Specifically, the response includes: providing 800 households with supplies of maize and beans for two months, as well as cooking oil, two blankets per household; education assistance for 300 children; hygiene kits for 800 households.

The KELC's work focuses on assistance to 1,500 persons with a response that includes food and non-food items distribution, shelter reconstruction, livelihood recovery and trauma healing. The response is targeted for a population that includes 10 percent who are physically challenged.

Earlier in the response, Church World Service worked with partners to meet the immediate needs of some 42,400 displaced people with such items as food, blankets, and mattresses, as well as psychosocial care for some of the most traumatized.

Contributions to support this emergency appeal may be made online , sent to your denomination or to: Church World Service, Appeal - Account #641-X (Kenya Post-Election Civil Strife), P.O. Box 968 Elkhart, IN 46515.

Return to CWS Kenya response index