This project will facilitate 250 youth to get informal skills from a village communal training centers (VCTC) where local knowledge from 50 senior citizens will be blended with modern knowledge to train the youth in weaving, blacksmiths, pottery, building and others. The project will establish VCTCs where apprenticeship training will be combined with sustainable environmental practices --to make products with market appeal. Senior citizens will also feel useful and appreciated in the community.
The rural regions of Western Kenya is faced with low incomes and high youth unemployment. While formal education thrives, there are a group of village youth left behind due to poor grades or lack of money to further their education. Such youths either idle at shopping centres or drift to alcoholism and theft --mainly due to poverty and stress. Western Kenya has over 900,000 youths and according to World Bank data only nearly 100,000 get enrolled in high schools annually after primary school.
The project will facilitate the youths to get informal skills from a village communal training centers (VCTCs) where local knowledge from senior citizens will be blended with modern knowledge to train the youth in weaving, blacksmiths, pottery, building, etc. The project will establish VCTCs where apprenticeship training is combined with sustainable environmental practices to make products with market appeal --for improvement of the general community well-being.
This project will reduce rural unemployment and also get rural villagers engaged in sustainable environment practices. This VCTC model will also serve as reference point within East Africa on the importance of blending local and modern knowledge for the community well-being. The project will also set up a fund --from the joint product sales --for the sustenance of senior citizens who mentor the youth in the VCTCs. The senior citizens will also feel useful and appreciated and in the community.
