Those words were spoken to me by Salim, a 27-year old Muslim from Nairobi’s informal settlement of Majengo, the place he says from where the “foot-soldiers” of Jihad are recruited.

Salim was being recruited, with his radicalization beginning at the hands of someone who had gone to school with his mother. This acquaintance was known as a layabout: he drank, smoked cannabis and wore his hair in dreadlocks. Then, he disappeared, returning a few years later, clean living and dressed in traditional Islamic clothing. He took young men out of the slum camping and swimming, prayed with them, and showed them videos of Syria and Iraq. He explained that the West is at war with Islam and that the way they could defend their community and their families is to join militant Islamist group Al Shabbab. Salim was not being “radicalized:” he was seeking a way to serve his community, his God and his people.

I met Salim through my work in conflict mitigation with Global Communities, a global development organization focused on community-driven development. For the last four years I was project director of a USAID-supported program called Kenya Tuna Uwezo, meaning “we have the power.” In 20 years of working in interethnic and interreligious conflict, I have learned that to prevent violence, we must first understand the people who commit acts of violence and their underlying grievances.

Image: A wide view of the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room at the Palais des Nations as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the “Geneva Conference on Preventing Violent Extremism – The Way Forward”. The 7-8 April conference was co-hosted by the Government of Switzerland and the United Nations. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré.