Provide Job Skills to Kenyan Slum Youth

Dear Friends,

For the past eight years, the Shauri Yako Youth Support Centre has focused on empowering underprivileged youth from Shauri Yako’s slums through skills training, continuing education and health promotion. We believe this is a sustainable way of reducing youth poverty. But we are a very small, community-based organization, run in the spare time of a handful of volunteers who also must work to support their families. As a result, we have limited capacity to fundraise and pursue grants from big donor organizations. We depend almost entirely on individual donors and partnerships with like-minded organizations who, like us, believe in the importance of giving slum youth a better shot at life.

Although our budget is currently very small, we are proud to tell you of our on-going efforts and accomplishments. For one, we continue to provide free, short employment training courses. Where possible, we assist with job placements. In January 2016, we also formed a partnership with the Youth Learn, Earn and Save Initiative, one of the organizations under CAP Youth Empowerment Institute, to provide youth with job skills training and internships for trainees. The first four participants in this initiative are now taking a three month course at the Buru Buru Centre. SYSC is providing their transport and training space at our centre.

We have also continued to address the lack of reproductive health information available to youth by using the SYSC Scouts as peer educators and delivering information at group meetings. While we have no funding for this program at present, we are continuing to offer individual counselling at our centre. Other good news is that Safaricom has agreed to donate uniforms and balls to support our long-running soccer club, which provides an outlet and teaches teamwork to community youth. Lastly, we are developing a proposal to make Interlocking Bricks, an income-generating idea of our local youth.

“Being a young person with no college education or job skills is a dangerous thing. The ever-increasing youth unemployment in slums, should worry everybody. Thank you for supporting me through the Shauri Yako Community Youth Support Centre.”- Robin, participating in SYSC skills training program-

As always, I want to end by saying that we are always looking for volunteers, both local and international, particularly in the areas of music, theatre, Information Technology, Fundraising and Drawing Arts. If you would like to volunteer or have questions or ideas for us, please just hit reply to this email.

Many thanks and blessings to you and your families.

Joe Mwai
Chair of the Board