Rescuing 100 girls from early marriages in Kenya

Juhudi Children in Crisis project beneficiaries were among the over 800 youths who participated in a 4 day event dubbed “Youth Behaviour Change Easter Sports Festival 2009” The event which ran from 10th to 13th April 2009 at the TYSA grounds in Trans-nzoia East District was organized by Trans-nzoia Youth Sports Association (TYSA) in collaboration with World Vision Kenya. The theme of the sports extravaganza was “Shifting the youth to positive thinking” The objective of the event was to equip the youths with life skills for positive behavior change. Given that the youth are dynamic and innovative yet very destructive if not well directed, this was meant to create awareness as well as forestall harmful behaviour such as violence, drug abuse, irresponsible sex and indiscipline.

The medium of sports was used to reach out to the youth. Several activities were held including focused group discussions on reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, career choice, positive thinking, self esteem and drug abuse. Also held were sports and games activities among them Football, Basketball, Volleyball, Netball, Darts, and Tug of war. Information sharing and exchange was well articulated through dissemination of Information, Education and Communication (I.E.C) materials, Music, poetry, dance and drama during the four days.

The event provided a perfect Easter holiday to the youth, as recreation, leisure and educative goals were all met at one go. The Juhudi project beneficiaries expressed their gratitude and satisfaction as it was highly beneficial to them. They would wish that the event be held annually, if other partners can support or sponsor the initiative. Please feel free to forward your feedback regarding this update.

Students from George Washington University in the USA visited Kenya in the third week of March 2009 on behalf of Globalgiving. They had the opportunity to visit and learn more about Juhudi’s projects. Christine Illanes and Michael Acton who arrived on 15th of March 2009 had very cordial and informative talks with the Juhudi Children in Crisis representative in Nairobi on 18th March 2009. The meeting was an open forum of free discussions about Juhudi organization, its donors and Globalgiving’s effort to connect them to their noble causes.

Christine and Mike shared their objective of visiting Kenya for interviews. They were visiting on behalf of Globalgiving to establish the information that donors would respond to best about projects that interest them. They also illustrated how ranking of projects is done and the criteria utilized. They provided several information handouts from Globalgiving that answered the most frequently asked questions about GG’s marketplace and how it works. The handouts were very ideal in marketing Globalgiving to other organizations in Kenya that may be interested in raising funds for community projects.

Mike and Christine also had the opportunity to learn about Juhudi, which is a Kiswahili term for “effort”. They received a narrative background of the inspiration behind the organization’s inauguration way back in 2005 as well as a written brief profile of the organization. They were briefed on how the project had transformed lives of indigenous community children and more so the feedback received from the actual beneficiaries. Indeed they were absolutely impressed by the good work at Juhudi. The Juhudi Board of directors on the other hand profoundly appreciated the endeavor by Globalgiving to go an extra mile in obtaining first hand feedback from beneficiary organizations. We believe the information shared will be resourceful in taking community projects to the next level. This exercise was very commendable as it added value to our fund raising strategies and therefore we recommend that it remains an on going engagement.

Eliud Akanga Sustainability Director