Speech by Mr Molu Koropu Tepo – Garba Tulla Development Organisation, Kenya (affiliated with Minority Rights Group) on 15 December 2008 Thank Madam Chair, I want to say that I honoured to be here. To see all of you, and also to talk about education. Education, we have been told, is empowerment. And so this process, the process of turning these recommendations into both [legal] and institutional framework. I think it should be expedited and speeded up, so that action of the points will be realised faster. I want to say also something about recommendation number 19: educational services should be arranged to reach minority communities. I come from Northern Kenya, my organisation works with pastoralist communities and therefore, while I agree with this recommendation I would like to say that educational services should include formal, non-formal/informal, and life long education. Otherwise, educational services is like that. Would not make the point come out clearly. Educational services also should be inclusive and thus take care of equality in education, it is wanting that services are spread out the country or region. And I would like to put in place the mechanism the national standards at all places. Also, educational services should be brought nearer to the minorities the services should not be seen to cover urban centres, because pastoralists move with their livestock, they are the interior and they often far from urban centres. Thus, pastoralists often are denied the right to education because of the kind of life they live. [Their parents are “pasu”.] The minorities also should be made aware that education is an opportunity for them to advise in their development agenda and education provides us all a level of ground to compete with other citizens and also at the global level. They should be made aware that services are available to them and should also be affordable to them. Education services should be relevant to the livelihood of the minorities because there is this concept where pastoralism is rooted as destructive to the environment there is a concept of demining pastoralism. Where pastoralist children who go to school who get formal education then do not have to detach themselves from the livelihood. So I will end by saying that education must make must assist pastoralist children to appreciate and sustain pastoralism as a sustainable way of life. Thank you so much for your attention.