Youth Empowerment.
We support youth talent development – in sports, creative writing, media training and build resilience to VE.
Youth Empowerment.
Mandera County has a youthful population. 54% of the population is under the age of 15. School enrolment is relatively low, and the biggest challenges young people face to education are lack of school fees, teenage pregnancies, absenteeism, drugs and substance abuse, and child labour.
The net primary school enrolment rate is 27.2%, while the net secondary school enrolment rate is 9.3%. These figures indicate that the majority of the school-age children are out of school. An estimated 137,000 primary school age children and 74,500 secondary school children are out of school in the county.
The main challenges young people face in relation to education are lack of school fees, teenage pregnancies, absenteeism, drugs and substance abuse and child labour.
Before devolution the county received minimal resources and owing to its location, the population relayed heavily on cross-border trade with Somalia and Ethiopia. The instability in Somalia caused by the many years of civil wars and current Al-Shabab menace has affected the youth population significantly. Lack of job opportunities in the county and the ideological and financial incentives from Al-Shabab across the border have led to some youth joining the militant group.
Our projects here through developing talent with sports and creative arts is aimed to encourage young people to stay engaged with their own communities and avoid joining the violence across the border.
Youth Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Project
The goal of the project is to provide training and productive asset to 20 youth to enhance their business and soft skills to enable them engage in self-employment. To achieve this goal, the project will have two components;
1) Technical, Business and Soft-Skills Development
This will target 20 youth (ex-combatants, PWDs and minority groups and youth at risk of radicalisation)
- Entrepreneurship Training (8 modules): We shall use the programme developed by Street Business School for this purpose.
- Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
- Business Opportunity Identification
- Finding Capital and Starting Small
- RecordKeeping and Bookkeeping
- Market Research
- Business Planning
- Growing Your Customer Base
- Money Management
- Life-Skills Training (6 modules): The youth will be provided life skills training essentials for an active and informed citizenry. The training will also cover health-related problems such as drug abuse, the dangers of criminal activities such as gangs membership and terrorist groups such as Al Shabab.
- Block Making Training: The youth will be trained on the use and maintenance of the machine, selection of suitable soil types and its preparations including the correct soil and cement proportions to use and taking care of the blocks. The training will be practical and each group will be provided with cements, soil and water.
2) Asset Transfer and Start-Up Materials
Once the training modules are completed, the youth will be divided into two groups of 10 members and each group will receive a package of productive assets which includes:
- Stabilised Soil Blocks (SSB) making machines: The machines manufactured by Makiga Engineering are manually operated and don’t require frequent maintenance.
- Wheelbarrows, spades, shovels, trowels and wooden plank support.
- Supply of cements and sand/soil required for the training and for the start up.
- A mature male Donkey
- A Donkey Cart
- 50 bags of cement
Youth Empowerment through Sports Initiative
GENCAD Youth Empowerment Through Sports Initiative is aimed at building resilience to both the pull and push factors which exist in the county.
With such a young population, high level of poverty and proximity to Somalia border, the youth in the county are at risk of being drawn into VE activities.
This project aims to engage the youth in sports as a means of developing their talents and reduce the risk of being drawn into violence across the border.
Our current project is working with 19 football teams; We have provided them with football kits donated through KITAID charity and plan to organise regular tournament and life skills training for the youth.
Creative Arts
As part of our civic education and community empowerment programme, GENCAD will work with schools, colleges and youth groups in identification and nurturing of talented youth in fields such as sports and creative arts.
We shall organise from time to time playwriting and poetry competition.
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