Advocacy

Citizenship and public life in Kenya must be friendly to Muslims. Like other citizens Muslims must have access to Identification, travel papers without having to fulfil special demands and conditions. Indeed we must mainstream Muslims way of life as part the Kenyan identity.

NAMLEF’s advocacy Program seeks to promote public participation, monitoring and evaluation of governance and social service delivery processes in Kenya. To achieve this, NAMLEF seeks to undertake the development of the civic competence of the Muslim Ummah and the citizenry in general.

Governance

The main objective of NAMLEF’s governance program is to enhance good governance, rule of law, accountability and observance of human rights in Kenya. The specific objectives are to facilitate the Muslim community to identify their needs, acquire necessary resources and promote social service provision that is holistic, relevant and self sustaining.

The Program seeks to achieve this through the following thematic areas:

Constitution and Legislative Reforms

NAMLEF’s seeks to contribute towards the completion of the constitution of Kenya review process and the implementation of a new constitution that will be cognisant of the wishes of Muslims and the general citizenry in Kenya. NAMLEF also seeks to contribute towards the implementation of legislative reforms related to land issues and national reconciliation in light of the historical injustices that have been meted against Muslims in the country since independence.

Peace-building

Negative ethnicity as a cause of conflict in Kenya has been a function of political machinations. Politicization of ethnicity has often taken place in situations characterized by inequitable structures of access to resources. Such structures have hitherto given rise to the emergence of the “in group” and the “outgroup” with the latter trying to break the structures of inequality as the former responds by building barriers to access that ensure the continuation of its privileged position. At the center of this scenario are the elites who, feeling excluded or threatened with exclusion, begin to invoke ethnic ideology in the hope of establishing a “reliable” base of support to fight what is purely personal/elite interests in a classical case of ethnicity vs class interests.

In addition, there is a proliferation of small and light arms especially that compounds the country’s security problems.  Kenya has experienced politically related clashes that led to destruction of lives and property and massive displacement of communities. In their attempts to maintain security, operations by the state security apparatus in the Muslim dominated north have often led to unnecessary loss of innocent lives and property as exemplified by the Wagalla and Bagalla massacres where they have been accused of active involvement in crime.

Through its peace building and conflict transformation programme NAMLEF seeks to comprehensively address the challenges raised by these conflicts subsequently building a country with a culture of peace based on justice and human security for all and especially Muslims.

Health and HIV/AIDS

Years of neglect of the health sector have led to a breakdown in infrastructure and lack of essential drugs in public health facilities in the Muslim constituency. While this has made basic healthcare inaccessible to the vast majority Kenyans, the introduction of a cost-sharing policy made the situation worse for the people of Muslims in Kenya. Worse still, the onset of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has complicated the fragile public healthcare system. On its part, the government has recognized the seriousness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and declared it a national disaster.

NAMLEF seeks to advocate for accessible, qualitative and efficiently delivered healthcare for Muslims and de-stigmatization of HIV and AIDS and equal protection of Muslims living with HIV and AIDS

Education

The Government’s implementation of the free primary education programme has seen a tremendous improvement in enrollment for children in Muslim dominated areas. However, major concerns in the education sector still persist amongst the Muslim constituency. The quality of education that these children are exposed to is of questionable standards since the increase in enrolment has not necessarily been in tandem with teachers.

In addition access to education facilities by the Muslim communities; poor schools’ infrastructure; indiscipline in and mismanagement of schools and security of pupils in these schools have become critically challenging for the attainment of relevant education in these institutions.

Subsequently NAMLEF seeks to advocate for accessible, quality, relevant and efficiently delivered education for all children and especially Muslim students in Kenya. it seeks to achieve this by working with the various stakeholders such as the Ministries of Education, Science and Technology; Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands, various government departments and peer Civil Society Organisations championing the education cause in the country.

In addition, the education program seeks to offer students from poor Muslim backgrounds with scholarship opportunities so as to enhance the capacity of the Muslim community in Kenya and East Africa thereby promote self reliance and sustainable livelihoods.

Research, Policy Formulation and Capacity Building

Research

The research program at NAMLEF seeks to identify critical issues that require attention thereby informing policy formulation. Key research areas are in Education, Environment, Governance Peace and Conflict and socioeconomic fields. Research findings play a key role in informing the NAMLEF’s advocacy programme and increase the capacity of the member organisations and the Muslim constituency.

Policy Formulation and Development

NAMLEF has identified that there is an urgent need to institutionalize representation of Muslims and their interests in key policy formulation organs to ensure systematic influence of policy formulation and its contents. Subsequently, NAMLEF seeks to deliberately advocate for reforms, whether legislative or regulatory, in the processes that have been discriminatory to Muslims and have hitherto hindered Muslims in Kenya to access rights of the citizenry. The envisaged new constitution as the foremost law of the land should enhance the rights of Muslims and not reduce them in any way.

Capacity Building

NAMLEF seeks to build the capacities of the members and the community is geared towards building the civil capability of the Ummah. It attempts to increase the ability of Muslim individuals and groups to influence the decisions of elected and non-elected leaders in their sphere and thereby discharge their civic responsibilities as citizens. This is manifested when the Ummah is involved in key decision making and participate in the implementation of the decisions reached at their domain of influence.

The capacity building programme is tailored to meet the needs of Muslims in rural parts of Kenya; Muslim students and Muslim organisations.