Nyeri County has trained close to 200 community members on Psychological First Aid (PFA) for quick response in case of terror attacks or other disasters.
The series of training that ended Friday puts the county in a better place to respond promptly to disasters and offer PFA in case of psychological trauma occasioned by either violent extremism incidences like terror attacks, accidents or disasters like landslides and collapsing of area quarries.
Foundation For Dialogue (FFD) director Michael Mugo said the next step will be the formation of a county network of PFA responders covering the eight sub-counties.
The training is being offered courtesy of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and FFD.
FFD is a non-governmental organisation that promotes peace, and human rights and advocates for good governance.
It is funded by the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) through Act Change Transform's (ACT) Accelerated Response Initiative Against Violent Extremism (ARIVE) project.
The training targeted community health promoters, nyumba kumi and community policing members, chiefs and their assistants.
"By offering the PFA training to people who are already doing other community jobs, we expect that there will always be someone nearby who can respond to a community need especially the one that requires psychological First Aid," said Mugo.
PFA is an acute intervention in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, terror attack or emergency.
It helps to minimize initial distress to prevent further complications enabling survivors and those affected to heal and cope.
Nyeri now becomes the first county to offer such training and to develop a booklet for guidelines for referral of survivors of violent extremism.
The booklet is set to be launched officially soon.
"Though Nyeri has a population of 800,000, the training of the small group is an effort towards achieving a bigger goal," said Mugo.
"We can't say that now Nyeri is ready to fully respond but at least it has a capacity of responding than waiting for other organizations like Red Cross and St John Ambulance among others to come and provide Psychological First Aid."
Nyeri developed an interest in equipping its residents with the skills after the 2014 Mandera quarry attacks where tens of people from Nyeri were left dead while many others who suffered trauma ended up healing naturally without any human intervention.
Nyeri has never been attacked by terrorists but it is a fertile ground for terror activities like radicalisation and recruitment to terror groups.
The county Intelligence and Security Committee has identified terror activities hotspots in Nyeri as the great Northern road that traverses Nairobi, Murang'a, Kirinyaga, Nyeri and Laikipia to Northern counties neighbouring Somalia. The road is a transit for extremists to Nairobi.
The informal settlements numbering 12 in Nyeri town alone are also hotspots.
The perpetrator of the Dusit D2 Complex attack Ali Salim Gichunge used to visit Majengo slums in Nyeri and after the attack, several young people left Nyeri for Somalia to join Al Shabaab.
"Nyeri is also known for early Islamisation dating back to 1902. We have 120 years of Islamisation and so we have many Kikuyus who are Muslims. It is very easy to twist the religious ideology of people who have an idea of Islam. They can be twisted to become radical Islamists," said Mugo.
"There are also a lot of land injustices with many people living in slums, without title deeds, and who have some grievances against society, making it easy to radicalise them."
The controversial late preacher Aboud Rogo frequented Nyeri until area Muslim preachers doubted his preachings and stopped him.
Oscar Githua, a forensic psychologist who has been training the residents said the PFA skills will enable the trained to respond within the context of violent extremism in case of terror attack in Nyeri.
"The training on PFA is like antibiotics, and can also help in many other things including traumatic issues that happen to residents daily including grief," noted Githua.
"I think it is possible to use the training in PFA to intervene at a very basic level before they (the affected) go to see a professional."
The training, he said, bridges the existing gap where people go through difficulties but fail to get the needed intervention.
There has been the mentality, he said, that one needs a professional on the ground immediately which is not true as anybody can administer physical or psychological first aid to prevent the development of complications.
A beneficiary of the training Leah Macharia from Mukurwe-ini sub-county, an area prone to landslides, said she will apply the training in responding during such disasters which she said have happened in her neighbourhood before.
"My neighbour and his wife are survivors of a landslide and they lost their child in the incident. I wish I had the training. I would have intervened to avert their subsequent problems that culminated in a divorce," she noted.
Veronica Njeri from Tetu said the training will enable her to help members of her community henceforth.
The Nyeri County Commissioner's office through its administrative officer, Fred Mwangangi, termed the training as important to the community and urged those trained to be good ambassadors and cascade the knowledge and skills gained to fellow community members on the ground.
