Defying elders who flatly reject western culture, youth in northeastern Kenya are resisting efforts by spiritual leaders to ban social media.

By our Top Partner allAfrica.com

A rising literacy rate, an aggressive push by telecommunication companies to invest in the region, and a sharpened appetite for social networking sites is changing the cultural equation in Kenya's North Eastern province, a trend that opinion shapers are tracking with keen interest.

From helping to organize youth meetings, to enabling distance learning, to connect locals with their counterparts elsewhere, social media is breathing new life into the region, a trend some believe could catapult a parched, politically troubled area into a new economic frontier. The challenges, however, remain enormous.

Violence
Thirty people were arrested in Garissa on 13 October, following violent clashes over land rights, a longstanding problem.

Also this week, aid agencies curtailed their work at the sprawling Dadaab camp - which houses nearly half a million refugees fleeing famine and fighting in nearby Somalia - following the abduction of two Spanish workers of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). The kidnapping of the women is the third time in two months that armed men have seized foreigners in the area.

A Shifting Social Landscape
Despite the tensions surrounding them, young people 's lives are changing. Take 29-year-old Mohamed Ali Sheikh. A database assistant working with the Millennium Village project at Dertu, an experiment aimed at making development work, Sheikh says that after leaving the office at 5.00 p.m. he explores social networking sites until 2.00 a.m.

Social media has meant new community engagement for the information and communication technology (ICT) worker, who sports an E63 Nokia phone with an aquatic keyboard. He tutors a group of teachers who signed up for ICT classes at a local school, and they, in turn, plan to pass on the technology skills they learn to others.

Mobilisation
But Sheikh's main involvement is with youths. He mobilizes young people for weekly meetings to discuss issues affecting their community.

"I have created some youth groups from my community who are connected to social sites," he says. "I invite them every Sunday evening to discuss our development agenda."

The youths tackle issues such as the persistent drought crisis, leadership, nutrition, abstinence, the threat of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV, and the use of contraceptives, as well as environmental protection.

"We also have Islamic pages where the youth interact and reflect on our religion and guide us along the moral path," says Sheikh.

Mobile internet
Although he uses a modem to connect him to the Internet at work, he spends as little as 20 Kenyan shillings (about 19 U.S. cents) per hour to the network through his phone. "My phone has an application program that enables me to open my mails and send attachments through the mailbox. It also has browsers like Opera," he says.

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