Provide Job Skills to Kenyan Slum Youth

Dear Friends,

For the past four years, the Shauri Yako Community Youth Support Centre's strategy for providing job skills to youth has been to provide training that can help one create self-employment. We are now seeing that the strategy is effective: 54% of youth who have received training here are in self-employment, and others are directly employed.

Theatre and music – self-employment initiative
In the last 20 years, theatre has become a popular form of entertainment and also a useful format for delivering health, civil, and development education. This July, we began a program to give youth here a creative outlet and begin identifying and developing skills in youth with theatre talents. Our new theatre group has been training and practicing with the help of a volunteer teacher and has been able to perform twice in community events and at the Nyeri town hall. The group now has 32 members and will ready for to perform for pay by December. We will develop a proposal to raise $3,200 to buy equipment, 2 speakers, 1 amplifier and 2 microphoes to allow this growth and will be grateful for any support you can provide.

Beads works – self-employment initiative
A youth-organized beads work training was started in September.  The purpose is also to teach youth a skill suitable for a small business through the craft of beadwork. The program will train 12 youth, including offering entrepreneurship training on how to access the market. SYSC is providing space, a volunteer trainer for a period of 3 month and the equipment.

Fundraising remains our top priority so that we can continue to develop and deliver programs that help youth find a sustainable path out of poverty. Urban farming and brickmaking skillls are our top priorty projects and we are always seeking volunteers who can help us fundraise in support of our skills training programs. 

Many thanks for your continuous support.

Joe