Muslims of Upper Eastern Region Establish BRAVE Structures
Muslim Religious Leaders and Professionals have resolved to form Building Resilience
Against Violent Extremism (BRAVE) committees for Upper Eastern Counties/ subregions. BRAVE Moyale, BRAVE Marsabit and BRAVE Isiolo were formed at the end of
the workshop held on 2nd to 4th November, 2015 in Isiolo, Kenya. Stakeholders in the
upper Eastern region represented by different organizations, institutions, and opinion
shapers in the community, Imams, Ulamaa and Sheikhs participated in the meeting.
The aim of the consultative retreat was to bring Muslim leaders, religious scholars and
professionals together to deliberate on the situation of the Muslim Community in the
region in the face of increased violent extremist activities in the country and identify the
most effective ways to deal with the threat. The forum was also meant to create
ownership and devise a workable action plan on the best way to implement BRAVE
programmes based on the community approach through establishing local structures
that will make BRAVE programmes easily implementable.
BRAVE is a Muslim led intra-faith movement initiated to bring Muslims together to
speak with one voice against violent extremism. It works to discourage Muslims from
embracing violent extremism ideology and foster relationships with people of other
faiths as taught by Prophet Muhammad (SAW). BRAVE’s main focus is on identifying
and analyzing the pull factors; i.e. religious narratives used to justify extremist
activities with a view of developing carefully thought counter narratives that are in
conformity with the teachings of Islam.
BRAVE is a three year programme whose objective is to train three thousand Sheikhs,
Ulamaa and madrasa teachers on narratives and counter-narratives using a Training
Manual and Resource Guide known as Master Narrative Set Kit (MANSKIT) which is
currently being prepared to be used as a training tool. By the end of three years the
programme is also expected to have reached 20 million Kenyans
The campaign started in the month of Ramadhan (June 2015) by putting adverts on
counter-narrative in both televisions and radio. Radio adverts were in Kiswahili and
Somali while the Television Commercials were in English and Kiswahili. Campaigns
were also initiated in social media by introducing a Facebook page by the name
jihadforall the same as twitter.
Objectives of the Workshop:
 Appraisal of effectiveness of BRAVE as a Muslim intra-faith program in dealing
with violent extremism
 Strategies on clearing image of Islam in the country as a violent religion
 Identification of the major causes of violent extremism in Kenya and how
Muslims in Kenya can intervene/address
 Discouraging Muslims from taking part in violent extremism
 Finding ways of assimilating the returnees without driving them to more violent
activities
 How women can effectively participate in counter violent extremism
Expected outcome:
 A concrete Muslim position on violent extremism
 Strategies to combat violent extremism
 Developed action plan on the implementation of the strategies
The following are the BRAVE Steering Committee members who participated in the
workshop:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Dr. Mustafa Y. Ali – BRAVE Convenor
Dr. Abdullahi Haji Wako
Dr. Othman Mujahid
Sheikh Ibrahim Lethome
Sheikh Ramadhan Aula – Secretary/ BRAVE Program Manager
For more information, please contact Sheikh Ramadhan Aula, BRAVE’s Program
Manager
[email protected]
Tel: +254 722 763794