Kenya: Kaparo Urges Morans to Venture Into Athletics

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Hussein Salesa

7 June 2011

Former Speaker Francis ole Kaparo yesterday urged morans to diversify means of livelihood from pastoralism to sports. Kaparo, who was the chief guest during the Morans Peace Marathon at Kom in Merti district, called upon the youth to exploit their talent especially in athletics.

He said many people are making a living from the sport and that there is need for morans to also change their attitude and shun cattle rustling for athletics. During the occasion, hundreds of morans from warring pastoral communities in Upper Eastern participated in a peace marathon.

The marathon was organised by a cross-section of organisations under the umbrella body of Northern Range Land aimed at bringing together morans to end perennial cattle raids. Participants from Samburu, Rendile, Turkana and Borana yesterday battled it out in the 21km marathon. More than 120 morans participated in the inaugural event.

Coordinator of the event, Gabriel Nyausi a community development officer in the Northern Range Land Trust, said the move was along-term strategy was to bring about change and cultivate positive attitude and co-existence among warring communities. DCs and politicians from the region turned up to give moral support to the participants.

The provincial administration and the organizers agreed to hold the marathon at Kom after the trading centre collapsed following insecurity between 2000-2003. Litangin Lengima, a 23-year-old herder won the race in an impressive 58 minutes. He bagged Sh24,000, the second runner-up took home Sh22,000 and the third position got Sh20,000.

The peace initiative comes in the wake of renewed wave of pasture related violence in the region in the past which has culminated into the killing of three people in separate attacks last week. Kaparo said it was regrettable that most youths in the area languished in poverty due to lack of exposure to their untapped talent.

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