Theatre and the Law with the Borana Community

Natural Justice has been working with its Kenyan partner, Kivulini Trust, to support the Borana Pastoralist community assert their traditional land and resource rights. Through this process the Borana have been developing a bio-cultural community protocol (BCP) to highlight their community vision, traditional land and resource use based on their customary laws. During the week of the 19th of August, members of the Borana community, including elders, women and youth met in Isiolo town, Kenyato continue their BCP development through the use of theatre techniques. These interactive techniques facilitated discussion on issues facing the community and proposed positive solutions for change.

The visioning experience included setting out where the community is now, where it plans to be in the future and concrete steps on how it wishes to get there. The process was facilitated by community theater expert, Hjalmar Joffre-Eichhorn, who has also been working with Natural Justice and the National Khoi-San Council in South Africa.

This group of the Borana community then travelled to Marsabit County to attend the Kalacha Festival, a gathering of over 600 pastoralists from northern Kenya. During the festival the group performed a short play they had written during the week of training, which highlighted real issues affecting the Borana and other pastoralist communities. The audience included approximately 400 pastoralists and members of the Marsabit County Government, including the Governor. Using forum theatre techniques, the audience was invited to participate by proposing solutions to address the issues they had just witnessed in the play.

During the festival, Gino Cocchiaro (Natural Justice) and Hassan Roba (Kivulini Trust) also held a panel session on pastoralism in Kenya, focusing on community land rights.


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World Indigenous Network Conference 2013

The World Indigenous Network Conference, held in Darwin, Australia, brought together over one thousand indigenous people and local community land and sea managers from the 26th to the 29th of May. The meeting provided an opportunity for indigenous peoples and local communities to share their experiences on community based natural resource management techniques through the hundreds of presentations that took place over the 4-day meeting. The presentations highlighted the growing emergence of community led conservation, which has concurrently demonstrated stronger community identity, culture and livelihoods. Keynote speakers at the event included Professor James Anaya, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Professor Anil Gupta, founder of the Honey Bee Network and Dr. Taghi Farvar, President, Indigenous Peoples and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCA) Consortium. 

Pastoralist BCP Programme Planning - Nairobi

Natural Justice's Gino Cocchiaro met with Life Africa Trust, Kivulini Trust and the Marsabit Accountability Forum in Nairobi, Kenya on 14 February. The meeting was to plan the two-year programme, supported by the GEF Small Grants Programme, that is being coordinated by the organisations to support the Borana and Samburu pastoralist communities to strengthen community governance systems through the development of community protocols with the aim of enhancing resource management and securing community land. Throughout the project Natural Justice will partner with Kenyan lawyers to build the capacity of the Borana and Samburu to proactively claim their resource and land rights.