Thank you Amplify Team and Experts. Indeed, we agree with you that our idea is a valuable one and requires a lot of zeal and commitment to birth it to reality. I believe we are prepared for this!

Some of the resources for youth with ideas that we could use include research grants for start-up ideas, micro-finance, equity investment as well as mentoring and coaching their ideas until they bear fruit. Job placement activities could be done by Kikwetu Hub youth volunteers who will learn how to communicate with companies that have vacancies, filter job opportunities (online/ offline) and match them with the CVs of trained youth. The youth will be taken through interview preparation tips and counseled.

There are a number of limiting factors for out of school youth, these include finding meaningful employment as a result of dropping out of school or being an ex-offender. Lack of guidance in managing the businesses they start hence most of them under perform. Those who want to go back to school are sometimes faced with parents who are very disappointed with their behavior or are unable to pay the fees. They also face the challenge of broken families, poor relations between them and their families or the community which makes settling back into their previous environment difficult unless interventions from a third party is sought to reconcile them. Kikwetu Hub will provide a cushion for such youth as they will find a space where they develop a sense of belonging in a community that networks, shares experiences and obtains sound advice. Young mothers and youth from foster homes also fall into this category.

In regard to funding, we intend to have an annual fundraising campaign where we will involve Companies under their CSRs ventures, well wishers, family and friends as well as International donors.

In order to sustain our organization, we intend to charge membership and training fee as well as encourage youth to come up with viable income generating activities and agree with them on how they will give back to the organization either through a percentage of equity, loan repayment or donations for others to benefit from in the program.

According to a USAID 2010 report on youth profiles in Kenya and Ethiopia, there is lack of data at national and international level regarding the status of youth; information that is vital to development of policies and programs that address the needs of the youth. Youth volunteers at Kikwetu Hub can be engaged in research and data collection activities and a variety of content creation done that may be made available to interested parties at a fee. This fee could be used for other start up research and data collection work. Alternatively, through Kikwetu Hub, volunteer youth can source for research grants to conduct specific research as assigned by paying clients.

In May this year, we formed a partnership with Omprakash.org a web platform that connects organizations with volunteers. It gives donations to organizations, grants to volunteers, trains volunteers as well as offers scholarships to deserving volunteers. We plan to utilize this platform to crowd fund for our youth projects come 2017 as well as make structural changes to our volunteer team by making additions of Development & Fundraising Coordinator, Resource Mobilization Officer, Content Designer and Writers. We also plan to upgrade our website to be more interactive thus improve our social media effectiveness and enhance our effort with the Omprakash Volunteering program. So far we have been writing blog content that aims to create awareness of Omprakash presence.

We also partner with the Ministry of Education who allow us to access their public primary and secondary schools on condition that submission of a report after every school visit is done. We work well with this Ministry and hope to elevate our relationship in 2017 from not only visiting schools, but also tertiary institutions.

Organizations that do similar work like we plan to do are Amani Training Institute, Tangaza University and RISE Kenya. Their training costs are high and offered at MBA level. RISE Kenya has certificate and Diploma.

One challenge that RISE Kenya had with their trainees is the issuance of certificates since they were not a college/ campus. They had to seek partnership with Tangaza University to solve this problem. Another challenge they face is getting learners to pay the cost of training which is heightened by cost of accomodation.

An inspiration from RISE Kenya is that their learners reported almost 100% growth after practicing what they learnt. Among them are hoteliers, farmers, tailors, carpenters, renewable energy innovators, to name a few, who are now successful job creators.

Another inspiring idea picked from Amani Institute is their out-door training environment. We hope Kikwetu Hub will inspire creativity and an overflow of ideas through similar infrastructure.

Hello William,
Patience pays,we will get there...Rome was not built in a day...

Best regards,
Deborah

Yes Godfrey, will do that. Thank you.

Best regards,

Deborah