Word: !kung
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...Kung'u and Otieno believe the best way to take down the politicians' armies is to take away the cannon fodder. For them, it's a simple calculus: Get kids to reject a culture in which they must obey the commands of their elders. Then, get kids to start working so that the next time politicians come offering $15 for them to go kill someone from the wrong tribe, they stop and think about how much they have to lose. "We are trying to create that rebel mind, where you think on your own," says Kung'u. "If the young...
Like most Kenyans, Rachel Kung'u takes a do-it-yourself approach to security. Last year, police did nothing when gangs went on a killing spree and blocked the main road into Nairobi during ethnic violence following the elections. Kungu had to face down the thugs herself. Eventually, she persuaded them to back off. "I told them, now that you blocked the road, food cannot go through, people cannot flee," Kung'u remembers. "They were starving their own people...
Twelve months later, Kenya's roads are clear but people like Kung'u fear that their leaders have no desire to confront the problems that led to the clashes, which saw ethnic groups turn on each other and forced more than 300,000 people to flee their homes. (The Dec. 27, 2007 vote saw President Mwai Kibaki edge out his rival, Raila Odinga, in balloting that was seen as rigged by both sides.) Damning evidence has emerged that Kenyan politicians plotted much of the violence that killed 1,200 people last January. This was done by offering cash to poor...
...head off that possibility, Kung'u, her close associate Tony Otieno and their group of volunteers are again taking on responsibilities that ought to fall to the government. They hope by acting now, far in advance of the next presidential election in 2012, they might just keep chaos...
...Rachel Kung'u shares that cynicism. Her volunteer work has been hampered, in part, because she will no longer seek money from the government's youth development fund. Associating with the government would, she says, undermine her credibility with kids who are likely to do the fighting. "What we have always done is avoid working with the government," she says. "We are making a small difference now, but if we joined politics, they would change us into one of them or we would make no difference...