The Peoples Of Kenya

In this book, the author is writing about the people of Kenya and their traditional life as it is lived, where it has not been touched by foreign influence. The author describes the experiences she has had and mention the problems she has observed when different cultures and races meet and live together. The conflicts and difficulties involved are a challenge to all of us, and the author hopes that her narrative and the reproductions of her paintings and photographs may make a small contribution to a better understanding of the efforts which the Kenyans are making in order to play a constructive part in the family of man.

Minorities and indigenous peoples in Kenya feel excluded from the economic and political life of the state. They are poorer than the rest of Kenya's population, their rights are not respected and they are rarely included in development of other participatory planning processes. This report discusses the abuse of ethnicity in Kenyan policies, arguing that ethnicity is a card all too often used by Kenyan politicians to favour certain communities over others in the share of the nation's wealth. Kenya: Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Diversity exposes these concerns in detail via the analysis of budgetary expenditure in the poor Turkana region, which is dominated by the minority Turkana people, and in the richer Nyeri region, home of Kenya's current President. The author, Maurice Odhiambo Makoloo, calls for immediate action to address the inequalities and marginalization of communities, as a way of ensuring that Kenya remains free of major conflict. It calls for disaggregated data - by ethnicity and gender - and a new Constitution to devolve power away from the centre, so that minority and indigenous peoples stand to benefit from current and new development programmes.The report argues that Kenya's diversity should be its strength and need not be a threat to national unity. Suppressing and denying ethnic diversity is the quickest route to inter-ethnic conflict and claims of succession. The report calls for urgent action.

This is an introductory work on the people of Kenya and Uganda including their cultures and traditions and what constitutes their identities as ethno-cultural-linguistic groups and their collective identity as Africans. It also provides some insights into unity in diversity among the different groups which has provided a foundation for the establishment of Kenya and Uganda as modern African nations. Tourists and others may find the book to be useful. It may also help some students but only as a supplementary text for in-depth socio-political studies.