By Joe Mwai | Chair of the Board
To our generous supporters,
We are so happy to tell you that we are nearing completion of the rebuilding of the Shauri Yako Community Youth Support Centre. Our centre is a very important place for youth from the three slum communities we serve, providing them with refuge from the street, access to health and social support, counseling, job skills and leadership training, etc.
You may know that our old centre was built of semi-permanent iron sheeting and timber and had become totally unstable due to erosion. By late 2012, we had hit the point where had to find a way to raise the funds to rebuild, or cease our operations. Shutting down and giving up was not an option - youth here deserve a chance for a better future and we are committed to trying to provide them with the tools they need to lift themselves from poverty.
Thanks to support from you, other friends and the Project Solution (www.theprojectsolution.org), we now have a near-complete stone and mortor building, with walls and a roof to withstand the elements and our hillside location. This new facility will also be able to house our job skills training equipment (like our sewing machines), securely so we can hold vocational programs here. In the past we've either had to use much needed funds to rent secure programming space or pay for night security to prevent theft.
There is a lot of excitement within the community about this new centre. People have told us they see the project as a sign of hope for a new start. People are already asking us when we will have enough funds to start new job skills programs, or to hold community planning meeting, even though the rebuilding is not yet complete.
If you are able to make a small donation in support of our on-going work, we will use it to put glass in the window frames, attach our rain barrel to harvest free, clean water and complete other final touches. In the meantime, we are actively seeking grants from bigger non-profit organizations, governments, etc. so we can begin more job skills training here.
Thank you again so very much.
Joe Mwai
Chair of the Board
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