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NAIROBI, Kenya – A choir sings during church service, a family leisurely strolls through the village’s market and there is distant laughter from a friendly card game. Suddenly, a rebel group interrupts the peacefulness of the village on a quiet afternoon. A radical faction enters the marketplace and threatens the civilians. The churchgoers abruptly evacuate the church, and the villagers scatter in an attempt to hide from the danger.
The police immediately arrive in response to the commotion. Due to lack of manpower and training to handle this particular situation, the police chief calls in support from the local peacekeeping unit. The specialized unit arrives instantaneously, assesses the situation, develops a plan, and puts the necessary precautionary measures into action.
The peacekeeping unit recently conducted the training in peace support operations taught at Amani Peace Support Operations Village located at The International Peace Support Training Centre in Embakasi, Kenya. This kind of scenario is the newly inaugurated training village’s specialty.
“The projects we have set up, for instance the African Village, are being constructed in order to facilitate the training especially in the East African region where there are not just urban environments but also rural settings,” said U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Luis R. Rivera, liaison and project manager for phase four of the Amani Peace Support Operations Village.
The village is comprised of 13 subprojects to include: skills house, african village, mosque, church, marketplace, rebel camp and patrol base.
Amani Peace Support Operations Village is a unique project in the region. To be able to put up a model of a peace support operations environment is very important to the participants since they will deploy to similar situations, said Kenyan Maj. Johnson Kiplagat Chelelgo, project manager for phase four of the village.
The project was built in four stages by the collective cooperation of Kenya, Canada, Britain and the U.S. This international project supports the internationalization of the school, as several nations contributed to its construction. The peace-training village is equipped to support a wide array of scenario-based training for all classes provided.
The international partners celebrated together during an inauguration ceremony Aug. 8 signifying the completion of phase four of the village.
“Phase four will assist us to create more scenarios that are more relevant for African situations. Having a rebel camp [helps] because in Africa, most challenges are internal conflicts and most internal conflicts are insurgencies so putting up a rebel camp is very important since it replicates exactly what’s happening in some countries that are going through some security challenges within the region,” said Chelelgo.
The IPSTC offers strategic, operational and tactical level peace operations training. The training village simulates a typical peace mission environment in order to enhance efficiency and provide practical tactical skills while supporting peacekeeping missions.
The cooperative spirit of the IPSTC and the partner nations clearly demonstrates the commitment to the continent of Africa by and in assisting in developing unique capabilities for security personnel from military, police, and civilian sectors, said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Rob Baker, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa commander.
| Date Taken: | 08.18.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 08.18.2012 08:40 |
| Story ID: | 93466 |
| Location: | NAIROBI, DJ |
| Web Views: | 47 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, International partners inaugurate Amani Peace Operations Training Village, by SSG Shejal Pulivarti, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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