I am responding on behalf of Grace Ochieng Andiki (Founder and Coordinator of Got Matar Community Development Group, western Kenya) and myself (retained by the Group as its volunteer fund-raiser).
We believe that it may be useful to share with participants a practical example of how one community, without waiting for government to respond to its needs, has sought to address some of the issues being considered under “Youth – Feeding the Future”.
We will tell you briefly about an on-going initiative, led and managed by the community, aimed at creating better opportunities in life for young people in a very deprived rural area of western Kenya, hit very hard by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Around the turn of the century about one third of the adults were HIV positive, and the working age population was dying out, leaving about 30% of the children orphans. Some of the children carried the virus.
It is hard to imagine the sheer scale and depth of the human and economic impact of this blow on a community already living in deep poverty.
Recognizing that “life must continue through odds”, a group of “serious thinkers” set up and registered a Community Development Group. The Group decided that as the community had “lost a generation”, the priority should be to make sure that its children could enjoy a decent education. They focussed first on upgrading facilities and capacity in the 10 primary and pre-primary schools serving the area (2002-2006). In 2006 they decided to build a 600-place secondary school, one block of classrooms each year over 4 years; they allocated community owned land, began planning and fund-raising and, within 4 months, had constructed the first block, employed teachers and enrolled 114 Form 1 pupils!
The new school was intended to cut the “brain drain” by enabling youth to continue their post-primary education within the area rather than have to leave their homes to attend secondary school, and probably never return to live and work in their villages. The core facilities were largely completed in 2010, when the first batch of “graduates” left, many going on to higher education. The community, having built the school, handed its operation over to the Ministry of Education to assure continuity. However, in keeping with its original aims, the Community continues to arrange bursaries for well qualified children, especially orphans, from the poorest families to ensure that they have equal access to good education and a daily school lunch.
The original idea had been to include opportunities for practical skills training in the secondary school curriculum, but this proved impossible. So a third phase of the programme offers young girls and boys training in a range of practical skills, aimed at broadening employment opportunities and accelerating local development processes. In 2011 the Community registered and began to set up an Institute of Technology (IoT) to run the skills training programme, starting it up in rented buildings so as to avoid engaging in major capital expenditure until it was certain of its feasibility. Training in practical skills is of particular importance in a situation in which the normal inter-generational transfer of knowledge from parents to their children has been badly interrupted.
There are now about 100 young pupils (many in the 15-17 year old bracket) in the IoT, 75% of whom are girls. Courses are offered in Tailoring and Dress-making, Food and Nutrition, Wood-work, Metal-work, Computer skills, Masonry, Car Mechanics, Beauty Therapy and Hairdressing. All courses lead to nationally recognized diplomas. These skills are all relevant to local and national development. As part of their apprenticeship, students engage in practical work, off-setting part of their tuition fees – for example in making school uniforms, taking part in building and furnishing the new IoT buildings (as well as the girls’ dormitory for the secondary school).
The immediate aim is to raise the number of courses from 8 to 10, responding to local demand, and to increase the number of pupils to 200. The Institute will eventually have 10 specialised training workshops and an administration block as well as a dormitory. This should allow the Institute to operate on a financially viable footing, with income from tuition fees and bursaries as well as from the sale of goods and services covering its recurrent costs – mainly teachers’ salaries. Two training workshops have already been built and equipped, and funds have been raised for two more to be completed this year. The Community is seeking another US$135,000 to complete the facilities (see www.gotmatar.org).
The Community has raised resources from both external donors and local sources to cover capital costs and the costs of bursaries. Though funds have always been tight, donors have responded well because of the strong commitment of the Community to its children and because of its efficiency in managing the process. Management is entirely local with no foreign presence (except a brief period during which two Norwegian “gap year” students taught in one of the primary schools).
What we can say is that the Community Development Group has gone a long way towards achieving its goals. It has done a lot to widen opportunities for young people from the area, especially girls, to get a decent and accessible education, and the results from the final exams taken by secondary school leavers are showing a progressive improvement in performance. All of this will, without doubt, improve livelihood and employment opportunities for those who have benefitted.
It is still too early, however, to arrive at an objective judgement of the impact that investing in better education is having on the community and the local economy, let alone specifically on its 15-17 year olds. We don’t know whether more will stay within the community or, armed with better knowledge and skills, will seek employment elsewhere. We cannot say for certain that boys and girls who have completed their secondary schooling and stay at home, running the family farm, are better than others in bringing about improvements. What is encouraging is that some of the first students who have already graduated from university are doing volunteer teaching in the schools during their holidays. A number who have chosen to be trained in the health sector are engaged in addressing HIV-related problems, especially the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the virus. IoT graduates in Tailoring/dressmaking and Wood-work are setting themselves up in business – and so on. The presence of the new educational facilities is helping people, young and old, to take a new pride in their community and to emerge with greater confidence from the profound demoralisation induced by the AIDS epidemic.
The extent to which young better educated people decide to stay in the community where they were born and to contribute to its development, ultimately depends on whether it offers opportunities for them to earn a decent living. The area still suffers from poor health services (though these are getting better), lack of safe drinking water and very limited access to mains electricity supplies. As throughout the rest of Kenya and most of the world, the prospects of making a decent income from farming and fishing – the mainstays of the local economy - will remain unattractive until the urban bias in food policies that favours low consumer prices is changed to ensure that food producers are properly remunerated for their labour and investments.
Andrew & Grace
Andrew MacMillan