“Friendship is stronger than fear”: How peacebuilding connect communities across divides in Kenya and the DRC

Inspired by the International Day of Living Together in Peace, we have spoken to Dorina Prech and Yvonne Tshikudju from International Alert’s Horn of Africa and DRC programmes. Read their interview to learn how peacebuilding projects on the ground can repair relationships between communities even in the most challenging contexts – and what actions and approaches can enable peaceful coexistence. 

What is one challenge facing communities in your area when it comes to living together in peace?  

Dorina (Kenya): In Kenya’s dryland areas, one of the greatest challenges is competition for limited natural resources, particularly water and pasture. It is compounded by climate change and weak governance failing to address underlying issues.  Droughts are occurring more frequently, causing livestock herders to move further in search of water and grazing land. This leads to more fights within and between communities over who can use these scarce resources.  

Yvonne (DRC): In the Great Lakes region, at the borders of Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC, trade is a lifeline for thousands of households. 80% of cross-border traders in this area are women. Their work supports inter-community cooperation and understanding in an extremely challenging context, where historical and ethnic divisions sow the seeds of mistrust, and economic hardship is part of daily life. But women’s small businesses are threatened by local armed groups, customs issues and a lack of awareness about their rights. Failure to sell and buy produce on time can be devastating to their businesses, community relations and livelihoods. This, in turn, has a direct impact on community safety, security and development. 

How are you and your team helping to address these challenges?  

Dorina: We’re creating inclusive platforms, processes and spaces for local people to develop peaceful solutions to their shared problems and optimise how they manage scarce resources. For example, dialogue sessions we’d organised for pastoralist communities in Turkana helped them reach agreements to share water in the nearby river using morning and afternoon timeslots.

We are also supporting grassroots peace movements. Regular meetings and training we organise for women peacebuilders from Kenya’s North Rift region and the Omo Valley at the Kenya-Ethiopia border enable them to continue their peace efforts.  

This work supports communities not only in managing conflict but also in building resilience to climate-related shocks and tackling gender inequality.   

Yvonne: One of our key projects, Mupaka Shamba Letu (“Our Border, Our Livelihood”), specifically supports small-scale traders in the Great Lakes and maximises the potential of business for peace. It encourages traders to work together through village savings and credit associations and cooperatives. These mechanisms provide women with access to economic resources needed for their businesses. As part of these groups, our participants learn financial education, develop business plans and can get funding at competitions we organise. As a result, women have been able to sustain their work and, in some cases, even double their profits. 

These cooperatives are part of a wider network spanning across 11 border points. It includes a dedicated conflict resolution committee with members from both sides, and public forums for discussing community issues with authorities to improve transparency. Within these structures, women traders also lead advocacy at the local, provincial and national levels.

The more economic power they have and the more they work together, the stronger their collective voice becomes, enabling them to defend their rights and seek additional support. 

Additionally, we organise training on social cohesion, peacebuilding, conflict sensitivity, and gender aspects for communities, authorities, local leaders and civil society. Despite regional hostility, these efforts help to reduce inter-community conflicts and counter hate messages.

What does “living together in peace” look like in your community? Can you share a moment when you witnessed it? 

Dorina: The power of this approach became clear to me very early on in my life. 

It’s about recognising the existing problems, engaging in dialogue for solutions and making at times uncomfortable choices that rebuild, not undermine trust. 

Once, returning home from a 4-kilometre journey to fetch water, I encountered suspected cattle raiders from a neighbouring community, armed to the teeth. They stopped me and asked for water. I watched them drink every drop of my 10-litre can. As I stood there, wondering if I had the strength to make another trip, my mind went to the families they might have raided. Had their children lost their chance at school because their livestock – everything they had – had been stolen?   

Not long after, a group of armed men came to our home at night to rest. My mother had to find a way to feed them. The fear was real, but so was the spoken rule of hospitality. In the months that followed, counterattacks occurred. But instead of continuing the cycle of violence, our village elders chose a different path. They crossed over to the other community to negotiate peace.   

Yvonne: In our community, it’s about mutual acceptance, being able to listen, respect and understand each other. Living together in peace must also be underpinned by forgiveness, but this forgiveness doesn’t come easily. People are traumatised by repeated wars, and the wounds left by past and current conflicts keep opening up.  

This is why projects that rebuild trust and promote cooperation remain a necessity in our communities. And I can see how eager and ready they are to use every opportunity for peace. Even in the current circumstances, communities on both sides of the border continue to regularly meet, participate in social cohesion activities and work with each other.

Their message is: “We are all brothers and sisters, wars will end, but our lives go on despite political turmoil, and peaceful coexistence is in our hands.

What’s one story from your peacebuilding work that proved to you that “living together in peace” is possible? 

Dorina: It’s about one meeting that has turned into a sustained, community-led peace initiative through Alert’s support. In 2023, our team brought together women from two historically divided communities – Pokot and Marakwet – in Kenya’s North Rift region for International Women’s Day celebrations.  

People in this area have had tensions for generations, but conflicts have recently been escalating because of climate change impacts. Even moving across the border, not to mention collaborating with the other community, is considered dangerous. But these women found a source of strength and hope in each other and chose a different path. 

They were so inspired to collaborate for peace that they now fund their own travel and gatherings, walking across borders monthly to meet, sing, embrace, and share meals. Their public demonstrations of unity challenge generations-old hostility and show their communities that friendship is stronger than fear. They now also manage joint revolving funds (chama), creating small but meaningful economic ties that deepen their trust. 

Ironically, patriarchal social structure has given these women space to operate. Their gatherings are often dismissed as mambo ya wamama – just women’s matters – allowing their movement to quietly grow, away from the scrutiny that might have shut it down. Their efforts are gradually gaining momentum. We’re now supporting their engagement with county governments to organise regular peace caravans and amplify their peacebuilding work.   

Yvonne:

I was particularly touched by the story about eight women who had taken out a microfinance loan for their businesses. When one woman’s husband fell ill, she was no longer able to contribute to the monthly repayments. But the other members understood her situation. They shouldered her financial responsibility, allowing her to focus on her family’s needs. This story demonstrates how, even amid conflict and uncertainty, communities can choose solidarity over self-interest. 

At International Alert, we believe peace is possible even in the most challenging circumstances. We work with communities experiencing conflict to repair and rebuild relationships – and with it their safety. Stories of what peacebuilding can achieve in the world’s most challenging places, sometimes with very modest resources, are the strongest proof of its importance.

This interview is the first in a series of conversations with Alert’s teams about the power of peacebuilding and the profound change it can deliver. Subscribe to our newsletter so you won’t miss the next powerful story from our peacebuilding work.