Monday, 26 July 2010

DOWN WITH APATHY


With the clock counting down to next week's referendum on a new constitution, it's worth heading over to Kuweni Serious if you want a fresh, thoughtful take on the issues facing Kenya. And more importantly, on what makes Kenya's youth tick. And remember, they make up the majority of the population.
Kuweni Serious -- a website featuring interviews with civil activists and ordinary Kenyans and founded by three young Kenyans in October 2009 -- has teamed up with Just A Band to launch a new campaign to fight the evil forces of apathy in Kenya. (Just A Band are the self-proclaimed experimental boy band behind the Makmende video that has been described as Kenya's first viral phenomenon ...in case you've been living on Mars...)
Among the new content on Kuweni Serious are a series of very witty cartoons by Just A Band's Daniel Muli, which aim to explain aspects of the draft constitution. 
The site also features interviews with young Kenyans -- both the more affluent and the lower middle-class in a city slum. The team asked them what they like about Kenya, what they hate and what they would change. The answers are funny, sad, and always thought-provoking.
The new Kuweni Serious campaign -- which was launched at the iHub last week -- is not just about the referendum though. It's much bigger than that. It's about getting young Kenyans interested in politics, caring about politics and eager to do something to influence their future. 
As Rachel Gichinga, who founded Kuweni Serious with Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu, told the crowd at the iHub after a presentation of some of their videos: "We hope we have begun a conversation ... pass on the message. Begin conversations around you."
Masya recognised that their work was probably only reaching the middle classes -- people with Internet access. But, as the 24-year-old said, this is an influential, and large group.
"We are reaching a clique of people that no one could get to ..a very detached group," he said at the launch.
"In Kenya, our middle class is not as small as it may look. It spans a great economic earning divide -- the upper and lower middle class are very far apart but collectively they are quite large and they influence a lot of what happens in the country."
He explained that many people in Nairobi's middle class are originally from other parts of the country, so when they go home , they are listened to. 
 "If we focus on the middle class, and get them, we believe that from there, they will take the response and go out. We are not even trying to spread a message. We are just trying to get people to care."
One of the videos on the site shows a recent protest against MPs efforts to hike their pay. The team interviewed people at the protest, showcasing the anger and frustration felt by many here. 
"It was the first, honest attempt to get a peaceful rally against the members of parliament in our recent history," Masya said. "We were looking at other countries ...in Europe and everywhere and even for the slightest mistake, people are on the streets, conducting protests against members of parliament and here it just doesn't happen. We keep getting slapped in the face and we turn the other cheek, slapped in the face again, and we turn the other cheek again. We just think it's about time that came to an end."
And he thinks that the time is right to try to jolt young Kenyans out of this apathy.
"Before, the apathy helped because you shut out all these depressing things around, but now it's gotten almost overwhelming, where it is crushing us under a weight of just too many things going wrong. Like the economic disparity between different classes -- it's growing wider and wider and that's something no one can ignore ... we actually need to start waking up."
Just A Band's Blinky Bill is interviewed on KuweniSerious and was also at the iHub launch. He was pragmatic about the scale of the team's action, but he said the idea was to offer material that was not abrasive, not didactic, but easily digestible with the aim of seeking explanations. 
And hopefully sparking passion and action in Kenya's youth.
"I think for the longest time we have disregarded what we can do, so I think if people got a little more involved, you'd have more youthful representation in parliament ... and the change starts from somewhere, because right now we have people in parliament who are basically old ... I'm turning 28 this year, and I feel like I have a lot to offer and I feel there are a lot of people who are in (my) age group as well who have a lot to offer. That's what we are hoping for, that people will become passionate enough about their country to get involved."
And his take on next week's referendum?
"Are people going to vote? From the people I've been talking to, a vast majority of them are going to vote ... I don't think this is going to be an election where people are going to fight. It might be closely contested, and that might be where the problem comes in," he said, adding there might be a risk of violence in hotspots if the vote was very close.
Looking further ahead, Masya, who was inspired to set up Kuweni Serious by the post-election violence in 2008 and the way he and the rest of the middle class seemed divorced from it, has a simple hope for 2012.
"No violence where an honest majority vote wins. I don't even care which side wins as long as it's a majority."



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