Contributor: Geri Manzano

Beatrice Chelimo (left) is the coach of the Cheptuget Women's Football Club. Pamela Mayende is one of her players. Her teammates call her “Van Persie” after Robin van Persie, the Netherlands striker who'll be playing in Sunday's World Cup final. Photo: Geri Manzano/Mercy Corps

Beatrice Chelimo noticed the slender woman on the sidelines, matching the movements of her footballers. She looked like she had all the right moves. Like any good coach, Beatrice asked her if she wanted to play.

Beatrice, who’s now 43, started coaching soccer in her native Kenya when she noticed so many girls had dropped out of school and had nothing productive to do.

In April 2007 she organized her own team, but things fell apart when post-election violence chilled relations between tribes in the Eldoret region. Still, Beatrice had a desire to tap into the talents of girls and help them do more for themselves. That’s when she learned about Mercy Corps and our post-election reconciliation efforts.

Our initiatives included a program to reconnect youth through sports. We outfitted Beatrice’s team – Cheptuget, which means “dove” in the local dialect — with football gear and provided training classes in conflict resolution, leadership training, entrepreneurship training and fundraising.

The women range in age between 18 and 35. About half have children themselves; most have had few opportunities to play organized sports since leaving school. Beatrice is trained as a tailor, and one of the things she does under Mercy Corps’ program is teach her charges how to sew. Many sew until 3 p.m. each day, then hit the football pitch.

That’s where they were the day Beatrice spotted her new player. Her name was Pamela Mayende. And she turned out to be so good that her teammates now call her “Van Persie” after Robin van Persie, the Netherlands striker who'll be playing in Sunday's World Cup final.

I asked Beatrice and Pamela to explain to me the importance of the skills training and camaraderie that Mercy Corps’ program offered. They said that many women often make marriage decisions based on economic concerns. That is, they end up marrying much older men purely for financial security. I said, "That doesn't sound like much fun," and they both laughed.

Beatrice and Pamela showed me how Mercy Corps is giving women real choices in their lives – sometimes for the first time. Beatrice is changing the lives of young women. And as for Pamela, she gets to do what most young women her age have had to give up: play football!

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“If you remember nothing else, remember our thanks.”

The District Peace Committee is made up of the elders in the Eldoret area of Kenya, who meet regularly. It is a sacrifice for many as some come from the outlying rural areas where there is no regular public transportation. They do it for the future of Kenya — for their children and grandchildren.

As with the groups aimed at the youth, this is a mixed group. They are made up of numerous tribes — Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Luhya, Kamba, Luo, Kisii and Turkana. They are male and female.

With funding from USAID, Mercy Corps supports this and other committees that promote dialogues for peace. These elders have heard many heartbreaking stories that people have shared about the period of violence after the elections of December 2007. They have heard women crying because their daughters were raped. But these meetings provide a place for people to share their stories and the elders remind them that no matter what happened, life must go on and that the goal has to be making a better future in Kenya.

The Eldoret District Peace Committee (Stephen Mwangi is front row, between the two women). Photo: Geri Manzano/Mercy Corps

Stephen Mwangi is one of the committee members. He lost his home and livestock during the violence.

“It was the devil’s work,” he said as he described how he had been relatively prosperous, but his large house was burned and he and his extended family were forced to flee to “The Showgrounds,” a displacement camp in a fairgrounds area.

He is a Kikuyu, but his children had married outside of their own tribe. As the patriarch, Stephen had to protect them and argue for them not to be harmed by those in the camp. After he had built good relationships within the camp, he decided to try returning to his original home. Though he returned as a minority Kikuyu among Kalenjin neighbors, he went and talked to his former neighbors and saw it was safe to return. He then went back to the camp and convinced his family and others that the neighbors would welcome them back.

Stephen and all the members wanted me to convey their thanks to Mercy Corps and our donors, who support the committee by providing transportation, a place to meet, office space and other means of support Their work has brought together tribes and communities and often led to reconciliation between neighbors. They hope for continued support as Kenya gets closer to the next elections in 2012.

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The Mercy Corps program in Kenya is all about reconciliation after the period of violence in late 2007 and early 2008. Everyone in Kenya has "post-election violence" on the tip of their tongue, but many small groups supported by Mercy Corps are working to make sure such violence never happens again.

"Don't I look smart?" Gabriel asks about his Nike football uniform and shoes. Photo: Geri Manzano/Mercy Corps

One example is the LEAP Sports Program. Working in partnership with a local Kenyan organization, Youth Consortium Kenya and Nike, it is changing many young lives in the Eldoret area of the country.

When I met Gabriel Gitau, 23, he was anxious to talk about the LEAP Program. He shared how the post-election violence led to the brutal killing of his father and how his family did not know what had happened to him for a month. The rest of the family had to flee and live in a displacement camp for two months.

When they returned home, Gabriel's mom fell ill, became paralyzed and had to leave the family. As the eldest son of four children, it fell on Gabriel to care for his siblings. He works to support them and pay their school fees.

Gabriel was understandably depressed after the death of his father and said he looked and felt sick. Football (which we know as soccer in the U.S.) was his only outlet.

His team eventually became part of the LEAP program. Through LEAP, Gabriel felt supported and learned about forgiveness. This program included various trainings, one of which is "Conflict Mitigation and Transformation."

"This helped me get strength," Gabriel said and moved him past his former intentions to take revenge. He now plays football in a mixed team which includes members of the tribe who killed his father.

He has taken a different path and he gives us all hope for the future of Kenya.

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I am writing this blog entry from a small village in Kenya called Bondo.

As a Donor Relations Representative for Mercy Corps at our Portland headquarters, I primarily answer questions about Mercy Corps and assist donors. I don't get out of the office much. However, after 11 years with Mercy Corps, I am about to get the chance to visit one of our overseas programs for the first time. I am in Kenya with another group and will be taking a side trip to the Mercy Corps program in Eldoret, Kenya.

Already this trip has been amazing, especially our group's drive by van from Nairobi through the beautiful Rift Valley. It has some of the most breathtaking scenery in the world and is teeming with life, both people and animals. We passed through very green rural areas.

The beauty of this area almost masks the horrendous violence that occured here. Our Kenyan hostess, Judith, points out some tent camps in the distance. Those living there were displaced by the violence that happened after the elections in 2007.

Mercy Corps' program in Eldoret was designed to address some of the underlying causes of that violence in that area of the Rift Valley. I look forward to reporting more on this program in the days to come.

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