Africa Initiative for Rural Development

About us: The Africa Initiative for Rural Development (AiRD) is an integrated development program that embraces a market development approach to support rural livelihoods and improve the quality of life through increased rural incomes and civil society strengthening. See our website: http://africa-ird.org Goal: The program's overall goal is to improve the quality of life and social well-being of target communities in Kenya and Africa through sustainable socio-economic interventions in food security, income generation, health and education. Vision To develop and demonstrate an effective approach to community based rural development, that is relevant in a variety of contexts, and which ... read more About us: The Africa Initiative for Rural Development (AiRD) is an integrated development program that embraces a market development approach to support rural livelihoods and improve the quality of life through increased rural incomes and civil society strengthening. See our website: http://africa-ird.org Goal: The program's overall goal is to improve the quality of life and social well-being of target communities in Kenya and Africa through sustainable socio-economic interventions in food security, income generation, health and education. Vision To develop and demonstrate an effective approach to community based rural development, that is relevant in a variety of contexts, and which can be replicated widely in Kenya and Africa. Mission To empower rural communities and institutions to manage community development through approaches that offer opportunities for innovation, knowledge generation and dissemination of best practice contributing to the overall aim of improving the livelihoods of poor households in Kenya and beyond Objectives To strengthen community level organizations/institutions to be effectively involved in and engaged in local/central government and non-public organizations in service delivery, democratization and governance; To improve livelihoods through diversification of income sources and promotion of appropriate agricultural and natural resource management practices; To increase water availability and reliability for productive use, improved health status and livelihoods; To enhance knowledge generation, management and dissemination resulting in wide adoption/replication of AiRD poverty alleviation approaches by other organizations Our Model AiRD employs a market-driven, sustainable social enterprise model for supporting rural projects and enterprises. The model seeks to promote enterprises and markets, targeted/catalytic funding to rural community entrepreneurial initiatives and to promote and share innovations for purposes of replication and scale up of what works best. Our model heavily depends on partnership building. Thus the method of deploying projects in communities takes place through cooperation and collaboration with like - minded partners in order to achieve scale and speed of execution. Examples of regional implementing partners include; other NGOs, local government agencies, ICT and mobile application companies, sponsors, commercial/private sector, input Stockists, technology providers, business development services consultants and financial institutions. Our Thematic areas: o Economic empowerment o Agriculture, Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation strategies o Health: - Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) o Civil society strengthening (CSS) and Capacity Development Our Programs under each thematic area: Economic empowerment 1. Youth Enterprise Development Program (YEDP) The Youth Enterprise Development Program (YEDP) aims to empower young entrepreneurs to transform their communities. The main objective is to empower the youths through training, mentoring and funding, enabling them to create business ventures for employment and wealth creation. The intervention seeks to address poverty and youth unemployment through entrepreneurship development initiatives. The Youth Enterprise Development Program (YEDP) adopts a comprehensive approach to promoting entrepreneurship development that involves training, mentoring and business development support services. Africa Initiative for Rural development applies a training model founded on comprehensive and integrated support systems which has four (4) key components: Integrated skills development/training Our training is tailored to cover both entrepreneurship and technical skills. This is a three (3) months skills development program that takes the beneficiaries through modules that includes: o Entrepreneurship/agribusiness o Employability skills o Financial Literacy o ICT skills training o Life skills: HIV preventions and Reproductive Health Based on experience, the modules we focus on have proven to have a high impact on the graduates. The beneficiaries are facilitated to form into enterprise clubs for ease of training by AIRD. Training sessions/classes for each enterprise club is conducted once a week for 2 hours each day for 3 months (12 weeks). We also have ICT skills and Life skills training as cross cutting key areas that are integrated into our program. Enhanced access to business finance Small and Micro Entrepreneurs often find it so hard securing business capital from mainstream financial service providers as they are regarded as high risk and do not also have collateral to secure the loans. In addressing this challenge AiRD has been: o Training the youth on Financial literacy to increase knowledge o Promoting a savings and loaning scheme amongst the target communities (microfinance) o Making referrals to financial institutions for those who need huge loan amounts AIRD plans to develop an Enterprise Innovation Fund (EIF) that will be utilized in funding emerging youth entrepreneurs. Mentoring: Business Start up and growth support Once classroom training is over, the graduates are taken through a 9-month phase where they are provided with support to start and grow their business. During this period, Business Counselors/Mentors support the entrepreneurs individually and/or in groups to start and grow their businesses. Business coaching and Mentoring assists the emerging youth entrepreneurs in overcoming the initial hurdles encountered while starting a business such as identifying a suitable business location, record keeping, stock management, sourcing of supplies and customer service. Youth with promising business ideas are linked to business mentors who act as their sounding board and assist them to develop their business ideas. Linkage to employment: Job placement and internship linkages are critical activities of the program. Youth who are over 18 years and with identity cards are linked to placement firms for employment and internship opportunities. AIRD also directly seeks employment opportunities for the youth in various organizations. 2. Women In Enterprise Development (WIDE): The WIDE projects is aimed at empowering young women between 14 and 35 years in entrepreneurship and combines business and technical skills development and financial education with development and enhanced access to markets and business finance. The beneficiaries are as well trained in various life skills and ICT for business. Food Security, Agriculture and Climate change Food Security, Agriculture and Climate change Kenya like other countries in the world is experiencing adverse effects of climate change. Climate change has caused negative socio-economic effects across most sectors with the most vulnerable being agriculture and livestock, forestry, water, health, fisheries, energy, tourism as well as physical and social infrastructure. Some of the general adverse effects of climate change experienced in Kenya include; Variations in weather patterns (reduced rainfall and failed seasons); frequent and prolonged droughts and diminishing water resources; floods/flash floods and landslides; environmental degradation and habitat destruction; resurgence of pests and diseases; loss of biodiversity; severe famine and hunger causing food insecurity and resource use conflicts To be sustainable, agriculture needs to remain productive and profitable, with minimal environmental impact, in the face of ever-increasing climate uncertainty. The objective of the Agriculture and climate resilience program is to: 1. Provide technical assistance to farmers, agricultural service providers, and policy-makers regarding sustainable strategies for adapting to, and mitigating the impact of, climate change, and 2. Seek innovative and effective research-based solutions to climate-related challenges facing the region's agriculture. What we are doing to ensure food security and mitigate on climate change effects Health: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) The state of health sector in most of the areas where AiRD operates is faced by a number of challenges that act in combination against the development of a healthy and productive population. Poor communications, poor water supply, poverty, poor rural health services and malnutrition are only some of the factors that contribute towards ill-health. AiRD's health component will contribute to the improved health status of women of reproductive age and children below five years. This will be achieved through a number of strategies: Community mobilization; health education and behavior change and communication that are culturally relevant. AiRD is keen on prevention of HIV/AIDS amongst youth aged 12 - 25 years and especially young women who happen to be more vulnerable. Some of the projects implemented under this theme include: - The CSDW project supported by P&G CSDW program that has facilitated access over 100 million liters of safe drinking water to pupils and communities in Muranga, Makueni and Kitui Counties over the last 4 years - BCC messages on health, sanitation and Hygiene in schools and communities - Been instrumental in creating awareness on COVID 19 and the prevention measures in places and need to adhere to the same to avoid spread - Advocating for universal health care access among the rural communities Civil Society Strengthening Program (CSSP) The program focuses on two components in the civil society sector. The first component involves research that will help assess competencies of civil society organizations (CSOs) and support their development. Secondly, AIRD will support government policy to encourage participation between communities and local government by underpinning that policy with mutual education, mutual training and encouraging mutual creative probl