How CBO seeks to empower young people in Vihiga

After losing her job in Nairobi, Nancy Bulinda relocated to Vihiga County and discovered many challenges that young people go through.

“When I relocated to Vihiga County after I lost my job in 2019, I was met with a number of issues and challenges that youths were facing in the county; these included massive teenage pregnancies, drug abuse and unemployment.

"The youth I spoke to clearly lacked a supporting hand and a mentor to talk to. Since I had a passion for community service and a vision to transform lives, I embarked on setting up an office in the village, Hamisi Sub-county,” says the 39-year-old, who runs Mentor Dada Foundation.

Ms Bulinda had registered the foundation in 2016 as a community-based organisation and initially had offices in Nairobi, before relocating to Hamisi.

“I am a wife and mother of three, a holder of a Bachelor of Business Management and a higher diploma in management of information systems, and a certificate in psychology,” she says.

“Mentor Dada was my idea. The passion to serve the community and make a difference in the life of young souls pushed me to start this organisation. Mentor Dada Foundation, being a community-based organisation, underwent the normal legal registration at the county level and the certificate registration took Sh5,000 only.”

Ms Bulinda adds that when she established the organisation, she was still working at Sameer Africa Ltd as a sales administrator. After a massive redundancy in 2019 that affected her, she relocated to Vihiga County and focused on the organisation.

She has three volunteers who handle and support different programmes at the grassroots. “We are, however, open to different professionals who normally come in to support programmes like mental health among youths, drug abuse, guiding and counselling programmes to youths, etc.”

Mentor Dada Foundation handles different programmes that affect the youth, including drug abuse, teenage pregnancies and unemployment. Currently, they are working on creating self-employment opportunities for youths who graduate from government polytechnics.

“At our centre, we take in youths who engage in activities in line with their skills to make a living. For example, currently, we have youths who are engaging in catering services at our centre, where they prepare snacks and meals and hawk to offices and the community around to earn a living hence self-employment.”

They largely depend on friends who buy their catering products and the catering services the team offers at meetings, weddings, funerals and other events.

“We would, however, love that the county government of Vihiga or other donors partner with us to help equip our centre into an industrial place to accommodate more youths like those in fashion design, to make clothes like uniforms for sale, those in carpentry to make furniture for sale too," she says.

“We have visited over 20 schools on life skills programmes (mentorship and career guidance). We have also visited five vocational training centres, including Kaimosi and Gimomoi vocational training centres.

Also read: Why we should involve youth in policy-making

"Through our life skills and mentorship programmes in schools, we have managed to control the rise in teenage pregnancies and drug abuse among the youth. With the current programme of creating youth employment, we are targeting a number of 20 youths by the end of this year who should be self-employed at our centre.”

She says their organisation is bridging the big gap between children and their parents by mentoring the youth into matters that parents shy from sharing with them, hence changing the community.

“Our first challenge is lack of support from the parents, especially in control of the rise in the number of teenage pregnancies. The community is yet to embrace the importance of education and career progression; therefore, youths marry or get married as early as 16 years and whenever we talk to these parents, they seem okay with it. If youths were encouraged to avoid early unprotected sex, then the vice could have been controlled,” she says.

“Another challenge is on youths who love white-collar jobs. They have skills from government sponsored polytechnics, but don’t like getting tired. They prefer waiting for job offers which is also increasing the rise in youth unemployment, even after graduating with skills.

"If these youths can show up in big numbers at our centres, then we can easily work out how they can join self-employment. Our other challenge is lack of funds to equip our centre with equipment to cover diverse job departments like carpentry workshops and tailoring machines. With this support, we can achieve our agenda.”

Ms Bulinda says that in their mentorship and life skills programmes in schools, they have reached out to thousands of boys and girls.

“Our five-year strategic plan is to develop our centre into a fully fledged juakali sector, where we can offer employment to youths who graduate with different skills from government sponsored polytechnics. We are looking at empowering our youths economically to reduce poverty levels, reduce teenage pregnancies and build our county.”