Looking Back; My Seven Years’ Experience in Project Management at Shalom-SCCRR
Eastern Africa

Looking Back; My Seven Years’ Experience in Project Management at Shalom-SCCRR

By April 4, 2025 April 6th, 2025 No Comments

By; Mr. Godfrey Okoth MA, 

The year 2024 marks an important milestone for Shalom-SCCRR as the organization celebrates 15 years of impactful work in some of the most impoverished, conflict prone and poverty stricken regions in Africa. The rationale, theoretical underpinnings and practical interventions of Shalom-SCCRR date back to the founding of the organization by Rev. Dr. Patrick Devine.  Prof. Mudida, Prof. Omoka Wanakayi (RIP), Dr Michael Comerford, Ms. Rosaline Serem, MBA., and Rev. Dr. Oliver Noonan joined Dr Devine as the work launched forth in 2009/10. I am delighted to have been part of this progressive journey for the past 11 years having joined the organization in 2014 as a projects assistant and further getting the opportunity to serve in the project management team as a Senior Projects Officer in 2018.

Mr. Godfrey Okoth MA (PhD Candidate), Shalom-SCCRR Senior Project Officer, facilitating a Conflict Transformation workshop at Koro – a semi-arid desert violent terrain in the Ilemi Triangle located along the Kenya-South Sudan-Ethiopia border interface

As we come to the 15 years milestone, the communication department asked me to share my experience of playing a lead role in the management of Shalom-SCCRR programs and projects as a Senior Projects Officer for the past 7 years. Being a Senior Projects Officer at Shalom-SCCRR has been a profoundly rewarding journey, especially as the organization marks this landmark. This milestone also highlights the commitment and resilience of the local ethnic communities and other groups suffering from manifest and structural violence. Their involvement in the realization of the Shalom-SCCRR Conflict Transformation, Peacebuilding and School/Educational Development Projects has been inspirational; a beacon of hope to so many still waiting for similar help.

Some members of the Shalom-SCCRR team led by Rev. Dr Patrick Devine, International Executive Chairman, Rev. Dr Oliver Noonan, Executive Director, and Prof. Wanakayi Omoka (RIP) former Director of Research, deliberating during a program strategizing session on the implementation of our humanitarian-peace-development interventions in different conflict locations in Eastern Africa.

Throughout the 7 years executing this role, I have been part of a highly qualified team of professionals made up of not less than 13 peacebuilding and development practitioners with at least a Master of Arts in areas of conflict transformation, peacebuilding, political science, development, sociology and project management. Through collaboration with this team, I oversee the delivery of project activities across 6 major focus areas; Conflict Transformation/Peacebuilding Training and Problem Solving, Empirical Research, Interethnic and Interreligious Education Development, Women Empowerment, Transformation of Religious Ideological Extremism, and Prevention and Countering Human and Organ Trafficking. The main focus in my role has been developing and coordinating projects design, schedule planning, activity implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of peacebuilding projects. Shalom-SCCRR’s peace and development projects are established in 36 project areas both in the urban slums and across the Arid and Semi-Arid areas within the IGAD countries of Eastern Africa, especially where Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda inter face with each other. Other areas are the controversial regions of the Rift Valley Highlands of Nakuru, Kisumu/Nandi Borderline, the Kenyan Coast and the informal urban settlements within Nairobi. The ever-changing conflict milieu means that my role has involved navigating complex social, cultural, religious, political and environmental landscapes to emerge with project designs that respond to the most critical needs of the people to inform the implementation of activities aimed at fostering greater awareness of peacebuilding processes, ideological tolerance, mutual development and reconciled relationships among marginalized conflicting communities.

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Photos from Sakaitim Primary School (330 pupils) in Molo Sub-County; the school was supported with a Shalom-SCCRR funded classroom construction, desks, teachers’ tables and chairs, stationaries, building materials, etc. from Shalom-SCCRR’s school/educational development support. These projects have improved learners’ enrollment, enhanced learner concentration, boosted teacher morale and fostered a culture of sustainable peace and development owing to the conducive teaching and learning environment.

Over the years, I have managed a diverse portfolio of projects, including community capacity development workshops focusing on peacebuilding skills and techniques, women empowerment workshops, tolerance building and ideological de-radicalization workshops and development of educational institutions. I have collaborated with the team members comprising of Rev. Dr. Patrick Devine, Prof. Omoka Wanakayi, PhD. (RIP), Ms Rosaline Serem, MBA, and Rev. Dr. Oliver Noonan, PhD, whom through their many years of experience and technical expertise I have significantly strengthened my prowess in peacebuilding and development praxis and project management techniques. Moreover, through the passion, vocational drive and the competence of Shalom team members Dr. Patrick Devine, Ms. Esther Kibe, MA, Mrs Judy Akedi, MA, Mrs Nancy Mirera, MA and Dr. Oliver Noonan, I helped to develop a women empowerment and livelihood resilience program, addressing violence against women and children, including the unborn, which has so far directly empowered 10,954 women living in Nairobi’s Urban Informal Settlements (slums) with the skill and techniques of conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Furthermore, I have played a coordinating role in facilitating the process of receiving development support applications from learning institutions across East Africa. I have been part of the Committee that conducts the approval of the development applications received whereby in dialogue with Rev. Dr. Patrick Devine and Rev. Dr. Oliver Noonan, we have supported Shalom-SCCRR’s development program by facilitating the implementation of 730 School/Educational Development interventions benefitting 222,271 students in 400 inter-ethnic and interreligious learning institutions across East Africa. Many of these schools and educational development interventions have seen at least 3 cycle of students benefitting from the institutions which would increase the number of beneficiaries even further.

Shalom-SCCRR’s Ms. Esther Kibe MA, and Ms. Habiba Dika BA (MA Candidate), interacting with women from Barambate, Marsabit County (Northern Kenya on the need for strengthening their participation in conflict transformation and peacebuilding processes.
Mr. Godfrey Okoth MA, facilitating a group discussion session with the local key opinion leaders on the establishment of conflict prevention and transformation frameworks in their areas.
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Each day brought unique achievements, from facilitating conflict transformation and peacebuilding interventions between groups with deeply rooted mistrust – often hate – to witnessing the first tentative steps toward collaboration, coexistence and reconciliation. A cornerstone of my experience has been the collaboration we’ve built with local influential opinion shapers (Local government administrators, political leaders, Christian and Muslim Religious leaders, Peace Committee Members, Women and Youth leaders, Business Community among others) who act as champions of peace within their communities following a series of conflict analysis and conflict transformation training workshops that we conduct for and with them. Of the 1,210 workshops on conflict transformation skills and peacebuilding techniques that have successfully been implemented by Shalom-SCCRR over the past 15 years, I have participated in the planning and implementation of close to 900 either as a team member or a team leader. Having successfully blended into multicultural environments and becoming a change agent with the communities I have worked with, I have not only effectively coordinated program activities but also motivated communities to stay focused in their pursuit of positive peace even when faced with mega life-threatening violent conflict situations. Seeing individuals and communities grow from skepticism to collaboration, and eventually to mutual cooperative support, evidenced in peace and joint school/educational development projects (and other medical/water/security projects funded by Shalom-SCCRR) has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of my work.

Shalom-SCCRR trained Community Animator for Kuresoi sub-county, Mr. Benson Mwangi Titus, presents the successes and achievements of Shalom-SCCRR’s conflict transformation, peacebuilding and school/educational development Intervention Initiatives to the Community and Shalom-SCCRR staff in Kuresoi sub-county.
Shalom-SCCRR’s Executive Director, Rev. Dr. Oliver Noonan, and Samburu Project Officer, Kennedy Akoko MA, with trained peace group members from Parkati, Samburu Country after the presentation of certificates. The peace group members are the resource persons tasked with leading conflict transformation and peacebuilding interventions between the two communities.
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 My most memorable achievements so far have been strategic leadership roles at the core of conflict settlement and resolution outcomes. In the past 7 years, I have provided leadership to the project team which has contributed to the successful accomplishment of four interethnic transformation and negotiation initiatives involving the Luo and the Nandi communities in the border of Kisumu and Nandi counties, the Turkana and Samburu Communities in the Northern Samburu County, the Pokot and Turkana Communities in the borderline between West Pokot and Turkana counties and the diverse communities living in the Rift Valley’s Nakuru area. Shalom-SCCRR has been involved in these locations for approximately 10 years, and in the past 18 months, Shalom-SCCRR has concluded these projects and successfully handed them over to the communities to continue protecting the peace dividends achieved. These results brought together communities divided by years of conflict, creating spaces for honest communication focusing on peace, truth, justice, and mercy leading to ideological tolerance and activating these former enemies towards joint development initiatives. It has been humbling to witness participants acknowledge shared histories and begin to construct a vision of peace together, as Shalom-SCCRR funded empowered and witnessed the first instances where successful projects were handed over to the communities to continue protecting the peace and all its dividends. Moments like these have affirmed the transformative power of conflict analysis techniques, non-violent communication, professional conflict transformation peacebuilding interventions, and reconciliation taking root.

The 15-year anniversary of Shalom-SCCRR is not just a celebration of its professionalism, worldwide acknowledgement and longevity but also a testament to the resilience of marginalized communities to overcome adversity. Their courage to trust, forgive, and rebuild inspires all of us who work in peacebuilding. As I reflect on seven years of my involvement in project management work at Shalom-SCCRR, I am overjoyed to have contributed to this legacy and remain committed to fostering a more inclusive, harmonious future for communities in eastern Africa and beyond.  The authenticity and integrity of Shalom-SCCRR’s approach is unique and second to none here in Africa.

Author:

Godfrey Okoth MA (PhD Candidate), Shalom-SCCRR Senior Projects Officer

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