Improving lives of 1000 girls in Nairobi's slums

It’s Time For Matching Donation,help us make it happen!

Every year in the month of April as from 3^rd-7th, GlobalGiving foundation has been running Little By Little campaign with its global partners around the world.The campaign is designed to help partners to cultivate a robust network of donors.The kick off of this campaign is scheduled to start as from 3^rd-7th of April.In this regards,Vijana Amani Pamoja has been engaging  girls and young women in different slum communities of Nairobi in a football league matches that kicked off on 1^st of march running till 3oth of June.The thematic league aims at providing girls and young women with sanitary pads while providing lifeskills sessions on sexual health reproductive and rights amongst other key health topics.

With Vijana Amani Pamoja taking part in the Little By Little campaign that starts from 3^rd -7^th April,GlobalGiving will be matching every donation up to 50$ made to Vijana Amani Pamoja.To make the mission of providing sanitary pads to our participants and equipping them with SRHR lifeskills education during this period of Wasichana Wacheze football league,we are kindly appealing to you to help achieve this mission by making a donation.You can as well help us spread the word: share this post with your family and friends to let them know that BIG change can come from little acts of kindness! 

As the world was marking the International Women's day on 8^th March  under the theme of ‘Embrace Equity’,VAP in collaboration with Standard Chartered Bank,Jubilee Insurance and Aga Khan represented by their respective staff  including top management held their joint celebration at VAP’s headquarters.A total of 120 girls and young women drawn from various vocational training courses were taken through a series of various educational activities focusing on :Financial literacy,sexual reproductive health and rights,Gender Based Violence,mental health,amongst others.Staff representing partners were involved into mentorship talks and mental wellness    discussions with the participants while VAP coaches were engaged in delivering sports based life skills sessions.Participants and the general community had an opportunity to receive health services from Aga Khan hospital mobile clinic that included:cervical cancer screening,blood pressure,diabetes, etc.

VAP Reaches Out To Kiambu School

Through a partnership with Tenth Revolution company based in Germany,VAP conducted sexual reproductive health and rights activities with St Martins kibarage school based in Kiambu county.A total of 300 girls from different classes were taken through football based sexual health activities coated with key health awareness messages by a group of VAP coaches.Tenth Revolution tackles the cloud skills gap to connect critical talent to business around the world and have incorporated St Martins school as their global charity of the year.VAP will continue partnering with Tenth Revolution to provide lifeskills lessons to St. Martins school and its environs in the county of Kiambu.

 Learning And Sharing Best Practices

Four representatives from Amazing Girls project based in Nanyuki had a two days learning and networking at VAP’s programs.The first day meeting held at VAP offices was focused on  getting to know each other,sharing program information,best practices while the second day program was more of outdoor activities with the participants,making interactions and learning practically how VAP uses sports as a catalyst for social and economic transformation.Amazing Girls Project creates education and running opportunities for smart,ambitious Maasai women in Kenya who lack the financial resources to attend school.The project champions the sisterhood of Amazing girls to help bring social and economic change to their communities and future lives.

In 2012, at a conference in Lyon, Founder & Executive Director of Vijana Amani Pamoja (VAP), attended a session on social enterprise development.

The session was delivered by Steve of Kick4Life, a fellow Common Goal community member organisation which had developed a series of successful hospitality social enterprises in Lesotho. Kick4Life’s restaurant and hotel were providing employment for young people, as well as generating income to support the financial sustainability of their Football for Good programmes.

For Enouce it was a lightbulb moment and he saw immediately that a similar approach could work for VAP, the organisation he had founded in 2008 to fight HIV/AIDS in Majengo, a slum district of Nairobi. From their first office, pictured below, in the following four years, VAP had grown significantly, reaching thousands of youth every year with health education and testing, as well as expanding their programming to provide holistic support including employability and entrepreneurship interventions designed to help young people work towards achieving sustainable livelihoods.

Despite these successes, and in common with many other NGOs, the biggest challenge for VAP remained funding and financial sustainability, with a competitive fundraising environment and the often short term nature of grants making it difficult and draining to maintain and grow the organisation’s impact. The workshop in Lyon showed Enouce, pictured below, how social enterprise could improve the situation, providing an opportunity to diversify their funding balance and to create a new and flexible income stream which could, at the same time, fulfil VAP’s mission to help young people escape the cycle of poverty.

When he returned from France, Enouce got to work, and when it was not being used for programme delivery, VAP started to rent out its various equipment, such as outdoor furniture, sports equipment, gazebos and audio systems. By 2016 they had raised enough capital to open M Food, a small restaurant and catering service located close to their office in Buru Buru, and it was soon generating a steady stream of income for the organisation. M Food was also providing paid employment to a team of three people as well as providing training opportunities for young people with pathways to permanent positions with various local restaurants, hotels and other hospitality providers throughout Nairobi and further afield.

With M Food successfully underway, Enouce and his team developed a vision for a centre which would be a dedicated facility used for both charitable operations and for further social enterprise activities, and over the next six years they put aside some of the income from M Food as well as fundraising towards making it a reality. By 2022 they had saved enough to buy some land on the outskirts of Nairobi and to begin the first phase of development of the ‘Youth Empowerment Centre’, which will include the following:

• Programme facilities including classrooms, a football pitch and a basketball court– safe spaces for health education and life-skills sessions and thematic sports tournaments.
• A health clinic providing youth-friendly services including voluntary counselling & testing for HIV, cervical cancer screening and referrals.
• A gender-based violence recovery centre – a safe haven for vulnerable young women including those at risk of gender-based violence, with access to vocational training courses for employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.
• A library and study space – offering a dedicated learning environment for young people to pursue their personal educational studies, with support and careers advice from trained tutors.
• Volunteer accommodation, providing a comfortable environment for short and long-term volunteers from around the world to visit Kenya and contribute to the work of VAP whilst being immersed in local culture.
• A vocational training centre, helping young people acquire technical skills and offering entrepreneurship training and support.
• Psycho Social Support Unit-A place to provide psycho social sypport services and mental health information to the youth and the community.
• M Food – the restaurant and catering service will also relocate to the centre.

Enouce says: “As well as providing an inspirational environment for delivering our work to young people, the centre will help us to operate more efficiently and will provide multiple opportunities for social enterprise. We can rent out the various spaces and sports facilities, run corporate retreats and expand M Food.”

Construction of the first phase of Youth Empowerment Centre is well underway, pictured below, with the team at VAP working hard to raise the remaining funds to complete the development.

Steve  of Kick4Life, who runs the Common Goal-funded, Social Enterprise Assist (SEA) project, designed to support community members in launching their own social enterprises, says: “When I delivered the workshop in Lyon, before SEA formerly existed, but with the principles of sharing our work already in place, I did not imagine that someone would take the idea and run with it in quite the way that Enouce has. It has been incredible to learn about what Enouce and his team have achieved and to see how SEA can make such a long-term and positive impression on the sustainability of Football for Good organisations and their social impact. It gives us great confidence that the work we are doing at SEA now will bear similar fruits in the future.”

Over the coming year, Kick4Life and VAP will engage in a series of learning exchange activities to support the ongoing development of both organisations. This will include linking the respective hospitality teams, with the staff at Kick4Life’s No.7 Restaurant and Hokahanya Inn & Conference Centre, supporting M Food with the growth of their offerings and the transition to a new permanent site at the Youth Empowerment Centre.

On 5^th November 2022 VAP organized its first local fundraising dinner geared towards supporting the construction of VAP’s youth empowerment hub.The facility which will be the pride of the community and a place for youth to have an opportunity for  sports based lifeskills and economic development activities including vocational trainings amongst others is already in action despite not having fully completed.The ground floor rooms are already up and running and could host youth meetings,training of trainers workshops,program meetings including monthly monitoring and evaluation meetings. The football pitch is already running with youth participating in football based programs that include HIV awareness tournaments and other thematic sports based tournaments for both genders boys and girls.The psycho social support room that will provide mental health information and psycho social support services to the youth and the community is on its way to gettting finished with some few works left.The community around and the youth have been streaming in for health information and referrals surrounding different concerns e.g HIV testing,cancer screening etc amongst others.The fundraising drive will enable VAP to finish up some ground floor rooms including:psycho social support unit,library for youth who participate in VAP’s programs to be able to receive the services that they require.Fundraising efforts to complete other units including:vocational training,Gender Based Recovery Unit,Health unit and others is still going on and VAP is humbly making an appeal from well wishers and other potential partners to contribute and help empower the future.

Off the blocks and into the world of Employment and Entrepreneurship is a group of over 40 girls and young women who foundationally graduated from sports based activities and plugged into various partnering colleges for vocational training courses.The group which was involved in various courses including:plumbing,pastry and baking,fashion design and dress making including hospitality,received their diplomas and certificates during their graduation ceremony.”It’s such an honor that my dreams of becoming a plumber is becoming a reality despite my gender.I looking forward to inspire many girls and young women from my community to take more courses that are predominantly male dominated.From this course am sure to be able to support my child and my brothers.” Said 20 years old Wanjiru.

Work Readiness Bootcamp

Fresh from graduation and in readiness to face the world of employment and entrepreneurship, graduates of vocational training courses attended a two days ‘work readiness bootcamp’ to be fine- tuned for their next course of life.The team received rich different types of information from a variety of  invited professionals including:local business professionals,career guidance ,customer care professionals and marketing and branding professionals who took participants through their paces in relations to their respective courses.participants engaged professionals one -on-one ,discussing the challenges and successes of employment and entrepreneurship.