JOINT INITIATIVE FOR STRATEGIC RELIGIOUS ACTION

INTRODUCTION

The Joint Initiative for Strategic Religious Action (JISRA) was five-year global program (2021–2025), partnering with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aimed at fostering peaceful and just societies where all people enjoy Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB). In Kenya, the initiative was grounded in the recognition that while Kenya’s constitutional and legal framework promotes FoRB and social harmony, persistent challenges such as intra and inter-communal conflicts, fragmented religious ties would lead to violent extremism. Crucially, the vital role of key religious leaders, women, and youth in addressing these issues had been often overlooked, despite these groups frequently
being both active change agents.

JISRA Kenya was driven by a consortium of 3 international partners—Mensen met een Missie, Search for Common Ground, and Faith to Action Network—alongside seven local civil society organizations including the Kenya Community Support Centre (KECOSCE) that implemented activities across 3 coastal counties of Mombasa, Kwale, and Tana River, focusing on the nexus of FoRB, peacebuilding, and inclusion impacting the lives of 10,500 people directly and 150,000 through media outlets.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

1. Intra-religious pathway – fostered understanding and cohesion within faith communities
2. Inter-religious pathway – Strengthened ties between diverse faith/religious groups
3. Extra-religious pathway – Established rapport between state and non-state actors in addressing issues
4. Cross-cutting pathway- FoRB addressed issues not confined within a single pathway but rather cuts across all the 3 pathways mentioned above.

CONCRETE ACTIVITIES

• Capacity building forums: These included trainings such as Paralegal trainings to reduce unlawful faith practices, Conflict resolution (ADR) for local community structures, and Gender Mainstreaming Trainings to address issues related to forb as well as other human rights concerns.
• Intra and Inter–Religious Dialogues: These dialogues promoted religious tolerance between and within faith leaders, faith communities and across cultures and ethnic groups. These dialogues addressed religious diversity, radicalization, and inclusion of minority religious identities.
• Community Sensitization and trust building forums: these addressed human rights issues and harmful practices and promote mutual understanding and respect and across and within faiths. The engagements also encouraged communities to build safe neighborhoods and protect their environments and promote cross-cultural and cross-religious values.
• Media Advocacy: this included Radio talk shows, online media campaign, online webinars, production of IEC materials to spread peaceful messages against violent extremism
• Engagement with state agencies- this embodied Advocacy meeting with national government officials and security officers, to push for policies that uphold civic space, nondiscrimination of faith minorities and marginalized communities and influence public discourse.
• Capacity Exchange Visits and Programs: These activities between peer learning groups (Civil Society, State agencies and communities to harness lessons derived from practice on programming themes such as CVE, Gender and human rights and technology) aimed at building communities of practice and improve on programming.
• Monitoring Evaluation, Research and Learning; The project undertook FDGs to assess the extent to which results are being achieved across pathways and document stories of change. JISRA also commissioned study on PCVE to build on the knowledge bank

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