Provide Job Skills to Kenyan Slum Youth

Dear Friends,

We hope the arrival of April finds you well!  Kenya has just experienced a 100-day doctor strike, which has affected many across the country - those from impoverished communities most severely. Sadly, people from the Shauri Yako and Manjengo slum where we work, who could not afford private hospital care, lost their lives. In Kenya, April is one of the wettest months of the year. Let's hope this year's rainy season will wash in postive changes for those at risk in our community.  In this spirit, we continue to work for solutions that will empower youth to help themselves overcome high poverty rates, low education levels and other barriers to a better life.

Kenya continues to face a serious shortage of skilled construction trades persons, while the UNDP reports youth employment stood a near 38% in 2016. So we have struck a collaborative youth skills training program with the CAP Youth Empowerment Institute (YEI) and its Youth Learn, Earn and Save program. 8 youth will be selected from SYSC to  participate in CAP YEI's 2017 Construction Artisan training, and benefit from 3 months of  masonry, plumbing or electrician courses and a 1-month apprenticeship with Option for Homes Kenya. SYSC will meet the cost of trainee’s daily transportation to the training centre for those who cannot afforrd it, and continue to seek additional partners to support our skills training objectives in the areas of masonry, welding and metal fabrication.

In February, we recruited 18 new youth between 14 and 16 to our Scout Group, one of our longest running youth support programs. Scouting supports youth who, in turn, have helped SYSC to engage the community on priorities like enviornmental stewardship. Says Scout group member James: "I am 18 years of age and went to school up to class 8. I am very happy to be a part of SYSC scout group; as scouts we volunteer in the community, we also go to leadership and life skills training camps. This is very helpful and my dream now is to get skills that I can use to create myself a job."

We want you to know that we're working as hard as we can as a very small volunteer run, grassroots organization to fundraise so we can broaden our impact.  We have new volunteers who are focusing on finding project parnters and raising funds. We've seen an increase in donations from you - our individual supporters in the first quarter of 2017.  As always, we are so very grateful for your continuous support and want to assure you that we are putting your donations to good use where there is real need.

May you and your families be happy and well. 

With much gratitude!

Joe