Trizah Eyanae: From hiding in the bush to leading peace talks across Northern Kenya

More than two decades ago, gunshots shattered the silence of a night in Samburu County. A young girl woke to her mother’s urgent whisper: “Run.”

Barefoot and frightened, she followed her family into the thorny darkness, hiding silently in the bush as armed bandits raided their manyatta. By morning, the goats and sheep were gone.

For six families, everything had vanished overnight.

That girl was Trizah Eyanae.

Today, she is a peacebuilding and conflict resolution programme manager with IMPACT Kenya, helping communities across Northern Kenya navigate conflict, rebuild trust and create space for women’s voices in peace processes long dominated by men.

When she recalls that night, her voice softens. “We were asleep, then suddenly my mother woke us and told us to run,” she says. “Nobody spoke because we did not know what would happen next.”

For pastoralist communities in Samburu and Laikipia, livestock represents far more than wealth. Animals mean food, school fees, dignity and survival. Losing them changes everything. “That night did not just take animals,” she says. “Fear stays with you.”

Trizah grew up near Maralal, in a semi-urban area balanced between town life and pastoralist traditions shaped by drought, migration and insecurity. “You grow up knowing peace can change at any time,” she says. “One day everything is normal, the next there is tension.”

As a child, Trizah heard stories of both coexistence and conflict between neighbouring communities in Northern Kenya, including raids that displaced families and shaped generations. “I started to understand conflict is not new,” she says. She also noticed that while women bore much of conflict’s burden, they rarely had a voice in resolving it.

After college, joining the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Maralal changed her perspective. “I realised peace is not something abstract,” she says. “It is something you can build.”

In 2014, she took on one of her most defining assignments: helping establish a satellite office in Baragoi under the Rural Initiatives for Participatory Agricultural Transformation for Peace project. Baragoi had long been associated with violent conflict and cattle rustling. But this programme approached peace differently.

“It was not just dialogue,” Trizah explains. “It was also livelihoods.” Communities were introduced to farming and alternative income sources beyond pastoralism. Slowly, practical cooperation began reshaping relationships.

“When people started depending on each other through farming and trade, relationships changed,” she says.

Even language shifted. “Before, people would say ‘those ones’,” she recalls. “Later they started saying ‘our neighbours’ and ‘our brothers’.”

Shared markets, meals and trade created familiarity where suspicion once thrived. Cattle rustling also began to be viewed less as communal retaliation and more as individual criminal behaviour. “That is when you know something is changing,” she says.

But stepping into these spaces as a young woman was not easy. At times, male elders openly questioned her authority. “Some would ask, ‘What will a woman tell us?’” she says. Others dismissed her more bluntly: “You do not go to war. You do not even hold cows. What advice can you give us?”

The comments reflected deeply rooted beliefs about leadership and gender roles. “It was painful,” she admits quietly. Still, she refused to leave. “I believed what I was doing mattered,” she says. “Peace cannot be built by one group alone.”

So she kept returning—facilitating conversations, listening patiently and creating spaces where communities could speak honestly. Over time, attitudes slowly shifted. “When people started seeing results, they began to listen,” she says.

Today, her work focuses on grassroots dialogue involving elders, women, youth and security officers. Her role, she explains, is not to control discussions but to create room for difficult conversations.

“In some communities, especially for women, people are not used to speaking openly,” she says. The process often starts in smaller groups before larger discussions happen. “When people begin speaking honestly, that is where change starts.”

Ask her what success looks like and she does not mention policies or statistics. Instead, she talks about moments. “I have seen people who were enemies sit together and eat,” she says, shaking her head slightly. “As a child, I never thought that was possible.”

What moves Trizah most is seeing women speak up for the first time during peace dialogues. “You can feel a different kind of leadership emerging,” she says. She believes women bring patience, listening and long-term thinking to peacebuilding because they live with conflict’s consequences daily.

Her hope is to see more women from pastoralist communities leading these spaces. Asked what she would tell the frightened girl who once ran barefoot into the bush during a raid, she smiles softly. “I would tell her that her voice will matter one day,” she says. “And not to be afraid to use it.”