Profile of Aembu Peace Museum

(GARU YA INDO CIA THAYU YA AEMBU)

Aembu Peace Museum is a community-based organization project and a member of the Community Peace Museums Heritage Foundation (CPMHF), a nationwide collaborative initiative of community peace museums of Kenya. CPMHF is registered as a civil society organization which aims to work with community members for social harmony and sustainable holistic development. Founded in 2002, it was a development of the former Community Peace Museums Programme, initiated in 1999. CPMHF has a membership of twenty-three community peace museums, of which seven are already fully established.

The Aembu Peace Museum was initiated in 2004. It started as a research project on peace and the cultural heritage knowledge of the Aembu people. This research process developed to a level of formal simple documentation and collection of peace artifacts and this triggered the curator to review the dream. It is that time when the idea of establishing the museum became part of the former research process. The building blocks of Aembu Peace Museum are:-

Vision

  • To realize a harmonious society where indigenous peace cultures are embraced, in shaping morals for sustainable holistic human development.

Mission

  • Journeying with the community in the process of researching, documenting and displaying indigenous peace knowledge and embracing it for lasting community social transformation.

Objectives

  • To understand the validity of indigenous peace knowledge in modern society
  • To conserve and explain the community peace cultural heritage
  • To initiate community social transformation through embracing the peace cultural knowledge
  • To build up communal bonds for holistic development.

Activities

  • Researching, documenting and displaying on indigenous peace cultures
  • Conserving sacred sites and peace trees
  • Organizing exhibition of peace artifacts
  • Initiating and conducting peace education programmes in learning institutions and at community level
  • Community capacity building through periodic training on community development
  • Working with youth to build their creativity and skills development
  • Journeying with youth on moral formation process
  • Guiding visitors and researchers to different peace sites and sacred sites.

Achievements

  • Participation of members in national peace-building activities since 2005
  • Establishment of semi-permanent peace museum
  • Planting and taking care of over 2,300 trees in two different peace sites
  • Establishment of peace trees nurseries
  • Initiation of peace clubs in three primary schools
  • Organizing two youth seminars on peace building and conflict resolution in 2007 and 2008
  • Journeying with other peace museums in the post-election violence reconciliation process of beading a peace tree, a nationwide event.

Actors

The museum curator, secretary and creative visual artist work with a board of ten elders, three women and four men.

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries of the peace museum are the members and the general community.

Partners

  • All community peace projects registered as members of CPMHF
  • Learning institutions Kevote, Karue, Kianjuki and Mwenendega primary schools and Nembure youth polytechnic
  • Provincial Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Office
  • Embu District Youth Development Initiative
  • Institute of Social Ministry in Mission, Tangaza College, Nairobi (part of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa)
  • British Academy, London.