The new president of the Rotary Club of Mombasa Downtown, Hassan Mbondo, on Tuesday said his mission is to ensure professionals and businesspeople join the war on crime and insecurity.
He said businesspeople and professionals had abdicated this role and relegated it to the authorities and non-governmental organisations, which, on several occasions, have clashed over the means used to fight crime.
The 36-year-old, who is also the administrator of Board and Legal Services of the Kenya Ports Authority, was installed to serve for a one-year term. He urged professionals to do more through community service, especially at the grassroots levels, to promote peace.
“Rotarians believe that worldwide fellowship and international peace can be achieved when businesspeople and professionals unite under the banner of service,” he said on the phone.
Rotary Club of Mombasa Downtown is an affiliation of Rotary International, a service organisation whose purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders to provide humanitarian service and advance goodwill and peace around the world.
“We tend to leave community work to kina mama back home,” Mbondo said.
He has chosen peace and conflict resolution as the theme of his tenure and attributed it to the suffering he has undergone because of insecurity, violence and extremism. He said conflicts have a devastating impact on the world.
Mbondo was born and brought up in Kwale county, which has borne the brunt of radicalisation, violent extremism and ethnic clashes.
“I've lost cousins, I've lost parents, and I've lost neighbours through so many of these menaces. You know them — the Kaya Bombos, the radicalisation. We don't need repeats of such,” he said.
He said professionals rarely share their time, talent and commitments to change lives.
“As Rotarians, we always share these virtues. We need more Rotarians in this world,” he said.
“It is, in fact, estimated that one billion people, including about 340 million of the world’s kids, live in a fragile state, in extreme poverty and without stable and reliable governance and security.”
Mbondo said without proper and timely funding, conflict can easily destabilise an entire region and have a global impact.
“Nobody doesn’t know about Wakali Kwanza. Nobody doesn’t know about Wajukuu wa Bibi. Nobody doesn’t know about radicalisation,” he said.
Wakali Kwanza and Wajukuu wa Bibi are names of juvenile criminal gangs that operate mostly in Kisauni and Likoni constituencies in Mombasa and have been blamed for terrorising and killing residents.
Authorities and NGOs have been calling for interventions to uphold human dignity and stem the moral decay that is engulfing society.
“There is a need for intervention, mitigation, transformation and resolution plans that are well coordinated and implemented to mitigate the threat of economic collapse, social disintegration, and moral conflict,” Mbondo said.
Leaders, he said, must have the vision to make the world a better place.
“We need a 24-hour economy in Kisauni, Likoni, Ukunda and Kilifi. We need a stable tourism industry. We need to talk on the phone while walking,” he said.
“We need to buy our wives gold chains but we cannot because we fear they will be targeted.”
(Edited by F'Orieny)
