The aim of Building Bridges is to raise awareness and reward citizens involved in peacemaking and to encourage Kenyans to start new peace building initiatives.

Launching soon, Building Bridges will recognize and reward peacemakers and peace projects across Kenya as a way of strengthening the peace building capacity of Kenyan citizens. Kenya needs peace to prosper and everyone has a role to play. The campaign supports people from all backgrounds to make a change. Building Bridges, in partnership with Media Focus on Africa Foundation and Butterfly Works, is raising awareness and support for the winning initiatives and individuals through an interactive online platform http://www.buildingbridges.co.ke. The campaign will run for three months and the winning individuals and organizations will receive cash prizes.

Building Bridges is open to all Kenyans engaged in peace building and peacemaking activities, including  organizing peace gatherings, community discussions, creative and sportive activities or even holding festivities and doing pro bono work to ensure peace in areas. Building Bridges is putting them all on the map and rewarding the most promising projects.

Individuals stand to win Ksh. 50,000/= and organisations can win Ksh. 100,000/= to Ksh. 150,000/= to support their peace building cause.

Everyone will be recognized! Register yourself, your organization or people you know!

Send an SMS to shortcode 5447 (on Safaricom and Zain, no extra cost)
E-mail: act@buildingbridges.co.ke
On the web: www.buildingbridges.co.ke
Or via Mail: P.O. Box 660-00606, Nairobi, Kenya

Prizes.

All registered peace initiatives will be recognized and have their efforts promoted on our online mapping platform. In addition, a jury will select the winners of our cash prizes. Building Bridges offers three cash prize awards:

• Individuals will win Ksh. 50,000/= of which half in cash and half in goods and services for the peace activities.
• Community Based Organizations will win Ksh. 100,000/= to be used by the organization for peace activities.
• Civil Society Organizations will win Ksh. 150,000/= to be used by the organization for peace activities.

The results of the competition will be publicized through an advertisement in The Standard Newspaper, and winners will receive their prizes during a prize-giving event in Nairobi.

Building Bridges: The Mapping Tool.

The campaign web site provides various ways of linking individuals and organizations. The mapping tool gives an overview of Registered Peace Building Activities throughout the country. It makes use of Ushahidi’s crowd-sourcing information system (http://www.ushahidi.com). The search functionality includes selection on location, fields of expertise and type of activity. Through ‘Yellow Pages’ one can find the contact details of professional operating organizations for information or assistance.

Promotion & Timelines.

The campaign launched soon with a promotional advertisement in The Standard Newspaper. Registration will run for three months, after which the jury will select the winners.

Print material and existing Radio and TV programmes are used to promote the campaign, notably the soap opera series ‘The Team’ on Citizen TV (http://www.theteamkenya.com) and the ‘Sambaza Peace’ project (http://sambazapeace.org/). 20,000 flyers and 2,000 posters will be distributed throughout the country through partner organisations. People who find it difficult to participate due to e.g. illiteracy or limited access to media will be assisted by facilitators.

Implementing Partners.

Media Focus on Africa Foundation is an independent, non partisan, non profit making institution registered in both Kenya and The Netherlands. MFA’s activities are geared towards promotion of good governance, informed and participatory democracy, effective and informed citizens’ participation in democratic governance, rule of law and respect for all human rights.

Butterfly Works is a social design agency who co-creates a fair deal for people all over the world. The organisation was founded in 1999 and works in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Morocco, South-Africa, Brazil.

Both organisations also implemented the ‘Unsung Peace Heroes’ campaign in 2008/09 aimed at identifying and recognizing those who played a positive role during and immediately after the post elections chaos in Kenya (http://peaceheroes.ushahidi.com).

For more information online: http://buildingbridges.co.ke