Support Kenyan Youth with Sustainable Livelihoods

GOOD KENYAN PROGRAMS 2021

In the year 2021, the Good Kenyan Foundation has been able to run three Mwanzo Program cohorts that take in high school graduates who are in transition to a tertiary institution. 

The organisation maintained a hybrid mode of learning incor[orating both online and physical classes. 

COHORT 10

Starting in July 2021, this cohort was taken through the various parts of the program that aim at equipping each of the trainees with skills and networks for self economic sustainability. The entrepreneurship class took a vary practical approach, requiring the students to start a low capital business and to run it in teams with the goal of making a profit. This exposed many students to business operations and gave them an appreciation of the skill of entrepreneurship. The life skills modules challenged the trainees’ value system and gave them basic skills on interpersonal relationships which are inevitable in everyday interactions. The art class gave the students practical money making ventures using easily accessible materials. The ICT class ensured that the trainees left with basic computer literacy to ensure that they adapt to a technologically driven world. 

The students were each paired up with a mentor to take walk with and to help them to set and navigate their short and long term goals. Many of them tackled the question of career choice and made significant steps towards the realization of those objectives. The mentor- mentee journey will go on for a year to allow for an impactful experience for each of the mentees.

TRAINEES

On the last report, we featured Zipporah, a 19 year old girl from Thika town. She attained an A (minus) in her KCSE but was unable to raise the money to join the university to study nursing. Zipporah expressed high enthusiasm to join the Good Kenyan programme despite the long daily commutes that joining the program would mean for her. 

Good Kenyan partnered with Akira Chix, a social enterprise that focuses on changing the technology landscape in Eastern Africa through a targeted increase in the number of girls who enter that space. The Good Kenyan Foundation supported the recruitment efforts of AkiraChix by offering their facilities to girls without access to the internet or computers. We also encouraged our girls to apply to the program. Zipporah was called in for the interviews and was shortlisted among the successful candidates.

Good Kenyan has also partnered with Jenga School, an organisation that is dedicated to solving global problems through increasing African expertise in data science, data engineering and software engineering. Jenga school have given a full scholarship to one of our students, Irine. She was interested in learning how to code and has always expressed interest in such programs although she lacked the finances to act on this interest. We are certain that this opportunity will be very impactful to her and to her family.

The Seeds of Hope organisation has consistently given one scholarship per cohort season and this has helped us to support several students throughout the years. For cohort 10, Joyce won the scholarship. She is an outspoken, organised girl with a determined and composed demeanour. She was among the best in time management and had an attendance rate of 100% since the beginning of the cohort. She was very supportive to her peers and towards the faculty. Joyce wants to pursue a diploma course in Fashion and Design. We congratulate Joyce for winning the scholarship and wish her all the best in her pursuits.

We are happy to partner with these and other like minded organisations that help in changing the trajectory of vulnerable members of society.

FUNDRAISING

The Good Kenyan Foundation has used different creative methods to help raise funds to keep its doors open for the youth it serves. To get these funds, we have run different campaigns throughout the year. 

Firstly, the Birthday Box campaign featured the sale of attendance tickets, birthday boxes and direct donations towards raising money for the then upcoming cohort. Secondly, Good Kenyan held a golf tournament and dinner in the month of October and sold tickets to help raise the money. 

CRAFTS MAKING PROJECTS

Part of our sustainability projects that caters for both the short and long term economic sufficiency is our income generating arm. A very important part of Good Kenyan is learning the handmade crafts and exposing both our in-session youth and alumni to the art of turning one's skills into a money making venture. 

Peter is a DJ who frequents the Good Kenyan offices to utilise the wi-fi. He puts his music on an online platform to showcase his work and is able to sell his pieces from that platform. Peter is also good at craft skills and has utilised them to work on clients’ boxes. This helps him to make money to cater for his most immediate needs even as he builds his long term plan.

Many trainees of the program benefit from the handmade products in the organisation as it is highly accommodative too. Alphonce, a college student studying accounting earns from these crafts too. He is able to work on weekends and on the days he is not scheduled for classes. This allows him some money for bus fare and upkeep for his personal needs.

We are very grateful to our clients who have supported our efforts to support these youth from underserved communities. Some of them were Google- the Youtube Shorts campaign, Bayer Africa, Willart Productions Ltd, Dubai Bank, Pats Treats, Sugar Baked, and Kenafric Industries Limited among others.

THE COMMUNITY WE ARE BUILDING

An important objective of the organisation since its conception is to build a community of people who are involved and invested in seing that the kenyan youth are at the forefront of becoming a change in the society.  Over the years, the organisation has been able to establish a network of people who come in to offer their skills, expertise, time and money resources towards the course of the Good Kenyan Foundation. The mentors of the program who take it upon themselves to ensure that they influence a better future for the young people assigned to them. They sacrifice their time to meet with them and many are willing to invest their social capital on them. The family of donors who each play a role in keeping the organisation running are also an important part of this community. There is also a wide network of volunteers who are friends of the Good Kenyan Foundation. They have reliably given support to the various program activities and have been an extremely resourceful part of this community.

Good Kenyan is looking to expand this network into a movement that spreads across the globe to ensure that we build a vibrant giving community for a good cause.

Greetings from Good Kenyan

We pray this finds you and your loved ones well.

We last wrote to you when we had just started Cohort 9 and we are grateful that we completed successfully in 30th June 2021. We incorporated a hybrid system on both physical and online training due to Covid -19 safety precautions and the lessons from cohort 8 where we did remote learning. We feel this new structure is more impactive as we get to interact, observe and share with the youth when in physical sessions and they get to learn the art of self-paced learning through the online classes which is what the future of learning looks like.

Experiential learning goes along way and our mentors went out of the way to offer first hand experience to their mentees in different sectors, an example is Mercy who mentored Michelle; She took her personal time to take her mentee to several hotels and restaurants in Nairobi for her to view some exemplary interior designs and gain inspiration. Michelle aspires to study interior design and curate beautiful spaces for people to eat, live and relax in.

Three of the youth enrolled are now in work placement learning directly from experts in the industries they aspire to work in.

Pascal through our partnership with Seeds for Hope has joined College of Human Resource Management in Nairobi to study a Diploma in Human Resource, this is a dream come true for him because he had lost hope of furthering his education embarking on the hardship of fishing in Lake Victoria before he joined Good Kenyan.

The youth were able to make several boxes for our clients during various campaigns and we are grateful for these opportunities as it allows them to make pocket money for daily upkeep.

Cohort 10.

We are currently fundraising for part of this cohort and youth from cohort 9 paid it forward by producing 200 birthday boxes for this campaign. The fundraising committee curated items in the boxes from products donated by several corporate and SME partners in Kenya to be sold to our community in a way of raising funds

This July we began Cohort 10!

We successfully recruited 25 students who started their physical classes in July. This is the highest single intake for us, we had so many really deserving youth that we didn’t want to leave behind. In order to take them and run the physical classes safely, we reached out to Tarpo Industries through our networks to donate a large tent that we could use as an overflow in our center. To which they generously accepted our request and donated the tent.  We are grateful for this donation that allows for social distancing, we issue masks and have placed multiple sanitizers to ensure hand hygiene during sessions.

We would like to share about Zipporah, who did her high school (KCSE) examinations and scored an A- mean grade in 2019 but missed her university spot since she was unable to raise the initial fees of USD 360 needed to enroll and apply for government student loans (HELB) This is exclusive of accommodation and utilities. This is really a heart-breaking case; an intelligent young girl has been working as a house help and grocery shop attendant instead of furthering her education. Zipporah lives in the outskirts of Thika which is about 100km for our center and we are looking for a safe hostel or a sponsor for her bus fare for her to undertake our program and eventually help her get a scholarship and a place back at the university. We are currently supporting her by paying her bus fare from the main kitty as we look for a way out for her. Kindly reach out to us if you have a way to help out Zipporah.

This month we are appealing for monthly/ recurring donors as this helps us plan better and ensure we give more value in what more to our programs. If you can give monthly kindly to https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/support-kenyan-youth-with-sustainable-livelihoods/ and click recuring donor and support us support more youth from underserved communities. We are also raising funds through the curated boxes mentioned above and several Good Kenyan Merchandise; to order kindly call or text +254793642707

Thank you for your continued patronage, we would never do what we do without you and your support. We would like to especially mention Dennis Ombachi who is currently at Tokyo Olympics for creating a social medial campaign that help us raise funds in Mid-June.

We began Cohort 9 in February 2021  with 10 youth from underprivileged homes in Nairobi, we picked a smaller number due to the rising numbers of Covid 19 in Kenya. We are doing physical classes at the center where we have implemented all government and WHO set precautionary measures.  We are reworking our remote model to ensure quality and will be embarking on an hybrid system starting May with 25 students per intake.

Kenya did not carry out its secondary examinations KCSE in 2020 due to the pandemic and many of the youth enolled have been home for long and some were aleady doing menial jobs to survive. We've had to accomodate them working with trainers and the team to be more flexible. I would like to hightlight Vivian who works as a demostic worker and is able to do her duties and attend 2 hrs of class every day carying extra assignments home. We chose to support her because she is her family breadwiner and missed her univerty spot due to poverty,  her family coud only afford to support one child and chose her brother to procee to universty and her to stay home. She scored a B stand and we are working to support her get admitted to the public university and truly impact her life trajectory.

We did not reaching our funding goal of USD 10,000 to enable us to purchase the box making machines which will ensure that our students make income that will afford them dignity of life and savings towards their goals while undertake our program, We will be launching an appeal in April for the balance amount through global givng and we invite you to join and support us on this mission. This machines will ensue vivian doesnt have to work as a domestic worker but be more creative and create products and earning from the sales.

The good news is that our partner Seeds For Hope has increased our college scholarships for 2021 to five, these scholarships are truly life changers to the youth who would have never afforded to go to college. I would like to take this oppoturnity to thank them and appeal to anyone who may have any connectins to more schoalrsips to kindly reach out.

We are now at 130 youth and we have achived this milestone because of all our donors. Thank you for your continued patronage.