By Jesse Odippo | Communications Officer
Dear Friend,
Thank you for continuing to support our work to equip young people in Kenya with entrepreneurship skills and pathways to dignified work. Over the past three months, your support has helped us move from planning into action. Our Youth Entrepreneurship Program (YEP) is now underway, and so far 183 young people have joined the program through a continuous intake model that allows us to support youth at different stages of their journey. We also hosted an Xchange Bazaar in partnership with Milimani United Community Empowerment (MUCE) in Kisumu East, where 23 young people came together to share ideas, build connections, and explore community-based business opportunities. From that session, 7 enterprise ideas emerged, including ideas in waste management, agriculture, micro-manufacturing, equipment access, housing, and digital services.
One of the young people we met during the Xchange Bazaar was Vallary, a young woman with talent and ambition but limited opportunities and outlets to turn her skills into something meaningful. Like many young people in our communities, she had the drive to do more but lacked the right platform, network, and support system. Through the exchange, Vallary was able to connect with other young people and begin exploring how her skills could contribute to an events collective enterprise for performing artists or even grow into something of her own. For us, this is what the work is about: helping young people move from having untapped potential to finding real pathways for collaboration, contribution, and enterprise creation. We also encouraged youth who are still exploring their path to plug into our existing employment social enterprises, KaaKazini, LigiOpen, and Sote Tule, where they can learn, contribute, and potentially help grow solutions that are already taking shape.
This quarter also brought important progress in strengthening the foundation around the program. We received our first external donation of KES 20,000 through a CSR partner, helping us successfully run the Xchange Bazaar. We connected internet to our JAY4T office and began improving it as a creative and co-working space for young people and our enterprises. Across our social enterprises, LigiOpen is now available on the Play Store and has begun outreach to local football clubs in Kisumu; KaaKazini has onboarded its first tradesperson, a handmade footwear maker; and Sote Tule continues to refine its farming model and tools for community coordination. We have also hired an Operations and Finance Lead to strengthen our internal systems as we continue growing. Thank you for making this progress possible!
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By Jesse Odippo | Communications Officer
By Jesse Odippo | Communications Officer
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