Provide Job Skills to Kenyan Slum Youth

Dear friends,

As the holidays are upon us, we'd like to take another opportunity to thank you with our whole hearts for being a friend to the people the Shauri Yako community this year, and giving eight young girls the chance to escape poverty.

If you still have gifts left to cross off your list, would you consider making another donation to Shauri Yako Community Youth Support Centre (SYSC) as a tribute to someone you love?

Unfortunately, for many here in Nyeri the holidays are not a time of joy.  Because most people in these slums live on less than $1 a day and there is no land for farming, many will go without food to eat on Christmas.  Poverty has many trappings, one of the worst of which the girls in our community is human trafficking. Young women, desperate for a better life, are being recruited to work in oil rich Middle East countries as house help.  Many are never heard from again. The media and the few who manage to escape report that they are held as slaves or forced to engage in commercial sext work.

We at SYSC continue to believe that the best way to address poverty is to provide Nyeri's youth with the tools, skills and knowledge they need to move on to a better life.  We do this through education, vocational training and health outreach.  We have now trained a total of over 240 youth in computers, tailoring, welding and metal work.  Over 50% of these individuals are now directly employed and many of the rest are earning a living through self-employement. We also address more immediate needs by providing a drop-in shelter, offer free HIV/AIDS education and training, promoting urban farming, facilitating youth involvement in sports and, when funding permits, run a food sharing program for those families most in need.

Your support for SYSC through Global Giving this year has allowed us attain training space, recruit trainers and offer tailoring training to 8 vulnerable girls. These young women, who all wish to pursue self-employment, are now receiving our support in attaining microfinance to help them get their feet off the ground.

We remain a tiny charity that depends entirely on individual donors like you. Our small size has benefits though in that we can mobilize resources quickly and have a very real impact on the lives of people we know to be in the greatest need.  We are striving to raise $5000 through our holiday campagin so we can offer a second phase of training to the next round of girls who are waiting for the opportunity.  Further funding raised toward our project goal will be used to begin a new course offering for young men in welding and/or plumbing in 2012. 

Please, consider changing the course of a young person's life as a gift that will really be appreciated this holiday season.  It may be convenient to sign up as a monthly donor, so you can spread the cost of your gift out over the course of a year.  Or see Global Giving's Tribute Card option to make a donation in honour of someone else.

Sincerely,

Joe Mwai and the SYSC Team

Chair of the Board

Your Support is Helping Girls become Self-Employed

We are happy to report that the eight young women who you and other Global Giving donors have sponsored will graduate in December 2011!  Equipped with tailoring, dress design and entrepreneurship skills (as well as HIV/AIDS education and testing), most of the students are planning to pursue self-employment. SYSC will assist them with access to micro credit and youth enterprise programs.  Many thanks from SYSC staff and our trainees for supporting this initiative.  We are committed to continuing to raise funds so we can offer more girls an alternative to poverty.

On a sad note, we wanted to let you know that Shauri Yako was devestated by a fire three weeks ago: sixteen homes and the life of a child were lost.  Town authorities reported that it was not possible to stop because there was available water.  Because this has been a regular problem over the years, SYSC has continually advocated for the installation of an emergency water point in our community.  Unfortunately, town officials have never taken action.  42 families are now sleeping in the rain and cold.

On a happy note, we wanted to tell you how we're able to help youth escape the slums for a few hours through our sports program.  When we started working with youth within the community, we realized that one of their greatest needs was right to play in safe recreation space. Shauri Yako and Manjengo slums didn’t provide any space for this purpose. When I was growing up here, we use to go and play at nearby garbage dump or roam the streets.  Wealthier parts of town were restricted to people like me and it was a trespassing offence to be caught there. When hungry, we use to invade the garbage bins in the Asian quarter in search of food - there was always roti. Forty years later, Shauri Yako slums have grown to the point that there is no spare space left.

We at SYSC found a way to address this problem.  Eight years ago we successfully negotiated an arrangement with the Ministry of Works to the old sports grounds of their football club, located twenty minutes away from our centre.  It’s now a place for us to provide sports training and leadership programs, home ground for SYSC’s own football club and a very popular recreation space for community residents. In exchange, SYSC maintains the grounds and coordinates programming.  Everyday you can find hundreds of people there – families spending quiet time together or playing soccer or volleyball.  It’s the only green space available for the approximate 175,000 people who live here and it is our hope it will remain and green public space forever.  SYSC has plans to start a cricket training facility for young people, in hopes some can make career out of it.

With thanks again for your kindness and continued support.

Joseph Mwai

Chair of the Board

Shauri Yako Community Youth Support Centre

Links:

• Our web page
• Our fan page on Facebook