Kenya police in Haiti are undergoing linguistic and intercultural training classes to enhance their operations in the Caribbean nation.
The team will get classes in French and Haitian Creole, which are the languages of the Haitian institutions and population.
The Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission Force Commander Godfrey Otunge officially launched the one-month linguistic and intercultural capacities development in Port-au-Prince on August 5.
He said this will help the personnel carry out their mandate.
“Moving forward, language barrier will be a thing of the past as police officers will be capacitated with skills, knowledge and competence to communicate and interact with local Haitians who have welcomed them in the country,” Otunge said.
Kenya police are in Haiti to help the local officials stabilize gangs that had almost overrun the capital.
The training is sponsored and spearheaded by the French government through its Embassy in Haiti, officials said.
Officials said they have realized the training is necessary to help the personnel work without any hindrance.
On October 2, 2023, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution (UNSCR 2699) authorizing the deployment, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, of a non-UN Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti, for an initial period of 12 months.
Their mandate is to support the efforts of the Haitian National Police (PNH) to re-establish security in Haiti and build security conditions conducive to holding free and fair elections.
While French and Haitian Creole are the languages of the Haitian institutions and population with which the MMS will interact, several States that have expressed the possibility of contributing to the mission are not French-speaking and/or Creole-speaking.
Building on its track record in teaching the French language to uniformed personnel and on the existence of a dedicated learning method developed with France, the International organization of La Francophone (IOF) has elaborated a fully funded ready-to-start training package to support linguistic (French and Haitian creole) and intercultural capacities of uniformed personnel at the MSS.
The aim is to improve the performance of all the mission's personnel, as well as its interaction with the host country in order to develop a relationship of trust.
With the support of France and other countries, different initiatives have been carried out in coordination with the UN, which identified language needs, Otunge said.
The teaching of Creole and French is being implemented in partnership with the Institutes français, the Alliances françaises and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
The UN Human Rights also took the team through the compliance framework, which aims at integrating human rights and international humanitarian law principles into the planning, conduct, and evaluation of security operations.
The officers were also taken through international standards and good practices on the use of force, particularly relating to the MSS mission in Haiti.
Apart from Kenya, other countries that have pledged to send officers to Haiti include Benin, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Algeria, Canada and France.