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POKATUSA is an acronym comprised of the first two letters of the names of four nomadic tribes - the POkot, KArimojong, TUrkana, and SAbiny - who live in the border region of Kenya and Uganda.

The Pokot, Karimojong and Sabiny of Uganda, and the Pokot and Turkana of Kenya, number approximately 4,000,000 people. According to their tradition, they originally migrated as one people southward from Ethiopia, settling at a place called Apule, in the Moroto District of Uganda. At about the same period they were joined by others from parts of the southern Sudan.

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Due to the area's harsh and arid climate, and to the settlers' singular occupation of being cattle (pastoral) people, they branched out to the various geographic areas which they now occupy in order to find grass, water, and space to support their increasing numbers of people and cattle. As a result of centuries of this type of nomadism and disassociation from each other, the once-brothers developed distance and distinctions to the point where they now view each other as enemies - who raid and kill each other in the process of economic survival.

The POKATUSA are among the world's least developed and poor communities. They have remained to this day as the left-behind; they continue to have missed every opportunity for integration and sharing of the benefits of the economic developments that the rest of society has participated in.

This condition of underdevelopment was complicated and exacerbated by a shift in the technology of one aspect of these traditional societies - the introduction in the 1980's of the most sophisticated high-powered twentieth century weaponry, the AK-47, which POKATUSA warriors now employ for their raiding and counter-raiding. Whereas raiding formerly employed the use of traditional spears and arrows - resulting in wounding and being wounded - the same activity, now bolstered by the technologically advanced weaponry, results in killing and being killed.

With the civil strife of the early 80's and 90's in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Uganda, these areas were saturated with gun trafficking in exchange for money, food, and cattle. The newly-acquired weapons in the hands of unruly young warriors led to more than the perfecting of raids. Looting, vandalism, anarchy, and the devastation of what was left of the sparse public utilities took place. This was the time in which the governments - particularly in some areas - lost control. The few remaining civil servants and NGO's withdrew from the region altogether, taking with them the small seeds of development which they had come to plant. The POKATUSA communities were left behind - to sink or swim - without any outside help for their distraction or survival.

The POKATUSA are simply exhausted. There is the realization among them that their violent practices have not contributed to the hopes that they have for themselves or for their children.

A new and encouraging window of hope for the POKATUSA has recently been opened as a result of work that The Pilgrim Center, World Vision Uganda, and World Vision Kenya began in response to a persistent call for an intense peace initiative from concerned national Ugandan and Kenyan leaders. Efforts thus far have been successful in the formation of the POKATUSA Peace Initiative.

Among the POKATUSA, there has previously been no trust in even the Church. As a result of the POKATUSA Peace Initiative, however, participants have expressed a willingness to consider substitutes for their traditional activity of raiding and cattle rustling, so that trust and peace-building are now foreseeable realities. A desire for peace has replaced a previous desire for revenge and violence, and hope has replaced an attitude of mistrust.