Improving lives of 1000 girls in Nairobi's slums

                                        Mental Health Counselors

In the wake of Covid-19 outbreak, a total of 8 VAP’s coaches were trained and certified to become mental health counselors and psycho social support care givers. The trainings have been so timely as most of the youth have been grappling with mental illness coupled with other disorders driven by the after math of covid-19 that has affected both their social and economic lifestyles. The one day training touched on various critical topics such as: self-awareness, developmental stages with key focus on psychoanalytic and Eric Erickson theories. In self-awareness, counselors learnt important background information on what makes up one’s personality and why personality defects are more likely to reduce one’s capacity to grow and develop as human-beings. Throughout the training, counselors got a better understanding of themselves, achieved their personal goals and ready to serve the youth in different programs as well as the entire community. “The knowledge I have gained will be additional to my current skills and will position me adequately to provide total support to the youth and the community, especially this covid time and beyond.” Said 20 years old Judy.

                                    VAP Participant Honored in the ‘Here For Good’ Series

Damaris who is a beneficiary of the ‘Breaking The Barriers’ project which was supported by Standard chartered bank, participated in the global ‘Here For Good’ series: life lessons of football filming with standard chartered bank, London office. The series was all about sharing their stories in relation to being part of the Goal program and experience with football.Damaris filming was done in her community here in Kenya where she does the football refereeing job, after successfully undergoing a football refereeing course under VAP’s Breaking The Barriers project that targeted girls and young women to venture into male dominated careers. Certified as a football referee by Football Kenya Federation, Damaris continues to inspire many girls and women in the football space and sports in general. As a way of appreciating the girls in taking part in the filming project SCB London office sent all participants each a porret of themselves extracted from the video engraved with a thank you and also an encouraging message from SCB.