1 Virginia Mutheu Paul; 2Dr.Charles Ochieng’ Ong’ondo; 3Dr. Abraham Kiprop Mulwo .
This a paper extracted from an on-going research thesis “Contribution of Tecla Loroupe Peace Foundation Sports Activities to Perception Change Towards Inter-Community Conflict In Northern Kenya”. In development communication, sport as Edutainment has been used in tackling social issues such as health, conflict resolution and peace building. This falls within the emerging discipline of sports for development and peace building. In Kenya armed conflict between the Pokot, Turkana and their neighbors‟ has existed over the years and sport-marathon is one intervention strategy used to resolve the conflict. Cattle‟s rustling has been a cultural practice for the Turkana and the Pokot for generations and was seen as a way of life. This practice has contributed to protracted conflict between the two communities in Northern Kenya that has claimed lives in thousands and brought about untold suffering to the region over the years. This paper assesses the contribution of the sporting activities initiated by the Tecla Loroupe Peace Foundation to attitude change in regard to inter-community conflict between the Pokot and Turkana of Northern Kenya. The study adopted a social constructivist-interpretive philosophical worldview and a qualitative-case study design. The target population comprised government representatives, communities‟ elders (both men and women), marathon participants, youth leaders, reformed warriors and the organization staff and marathon organizers. A sample size of 56 participants was selected. Purposive, quota and snow ball sampling techniques were employed. Data generation techniques employed were: in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, observation and document analysis. The collected data were analyzed thematically. From the study findings, it emerged that sports, specifically the marathon races organized by the TLPF, had helped a majority of members of the two warring communities to revise their initial perception of cattle rustling as a beneficial economic activity. Hence the social and attitude changes towards intercommunity conflict. Most of them had begun to embrace inter-community peace building strategies and realized the negative implications of engaging in armed cattle rustling. This was attributed to the participatory nature of the communication strategies employed by TLPF in peace building. The study recommended that the sustainability and long-term vision of sports initiative of the TLPF must be grounded in the initial goals and objectives that were set during the planning stages. This is because; some members of the implementing committee of TLPF were reportedly steadily modifying the initial peace building objective of the initiative to a wealth creation initiative.
