ELF-Africa, Makueni County Agree to Establish a County Youth Caucus

/0 Comments/in /by

Emerging Leaders Foundation-Africa and Makueni County have agreed to form a County Youth Caucus as an avenue for structured and more inclusive youth engagement in the economic and governance issues of their county. This caucus will also be a timely platform for the young people from County 017 to network amongst themselves and form mutual interest partnerships that will steer social-economic growth, community development and enhance accountability in the County.

As part of the nascent efforts of ELF-Africa’s Husika team in Makueni, they paid a courtesy call to select County officials. The Thursday 12th August 2021 meeting saw the Husika team hold talks with the Acting County Youth Director, and the Clerk of the County Assembly of Makueni. In the meeting, the parties extensively discussed the recently passed Makueni County Youth Policy as well as other areas of future engagement between ELF-Africa and the County. The Acting Youth Director, Mr. Charles Muthoka and the Clerk of the County Assembly, Mr. Kevin Mutuku noted that on account of the good working relationship between the executive and the County Assembly, a total of 17 critical policies were passed in July, bringing the total number of policies passed by the County to 26.

ELF-Africa’s Husika team in deliberations with Makueni County officials

Makueni County is one of the most progressive of the 47 devolved units, leading the way in an array of fields; from public participation to youth mainstreaming, and gender parity to local industrialisation. Just a month ago, the Kivutha Kibwana led government passed the County Youth Policy, only the second in the country after Vihiga County.

ELF-Africa’s Husika team in the county has consistently led advocacy drives in the county, a central role that partly contributed to the expedited passing of the County Youth Policy. As such this County Youth Caucus is viewed as a necessary initiative and ELF-Africa is happy to be on board and lend its expertise in establishing, structuring, mentoring, and guiding the caucus into a meaningful tool for the youth to be at the centre of decision making and key players in implementation of the different policies and development projects.

Representing ELF-Africa’s Husika team were Wavinya Nzioka, Winnie Mukosi, Sebastian Kilonzo and Oliver Ndolo, who committed to follow through and ensure the Youth Policy is adequately funded and fully implemented.

ELF-Africa remains committed to continuously equip young women and men in Makueni and other counties with relevant tools, knowledge, and linkages to enable them to become active citizens championing the interests of country and advance the tenets of pan-Africanism.

Women’s untapped leadership potential an unexplored resource

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid19 world. Since the onset of the pandemic, we have seen women all over the world standing fearlessly at the front lines, working tirelessly as health care workers and caregivers.

In countries like Denmark, Finland, Germany, and New Zealand where there has been effective, rapid and sustainable response to the pandemic are headed by women. This goes to show that women have untapped and unexplored leadership potential.

Gender inequality has contributed majorly to the lack of representation of women in leadership positions as it is in only 20 countries worldwide where women are the heads of state. Despite the already existing Barriers to women’s leadership like cultural norms, new barriers have emerged during the pandemic. There has been an increase in violence against women and denial of their Human rights. This in turn leads to unemployment and poverty and results in them being unable to realize their full potential.

Education also plays a key role in ensuring that women are empowered hence preparing them for leadership roles. But unfortunately, girls are still unable to attend school due to lack of sanitary towels, harmful cultural practices and poverty. This instead leaves women and girls vulnerable and uneducated, hence unable to know and understand their rights, fight for them, and make informed and empowered decisions. All these factors prevent women from getting into leadership positions.

I urge governments globally to fully leverage on women’s leadership potential and have their voices represented and integrated into decision making processes. Girls should be empowered at an early age while they are still in school on the importance of partaking leadership roles so that they may be accountable leaders in the future.
Let’s break all barriers.

Written by: Esther Aoko, My Sisters’ Keeper Alumni, Husika Fellow & Sexual and Reproductive Health Youth Advocate

Alumni of the week: Wendy Omanga

/4 Comments/in , , , , /by

Wendy Omanga is a graduate from the university of Nairobi with a B.A in Political science and communication. Additionally, she is the founder of Moonlight Initiative which is a youth lead sustainability and circular economy consultancy which has specialized in Bamboo consultancy. The initiative also sells bamboo products through her ecommerce site called Bambooka. In August this year, she was awarded the Top 35 Under 35 Youth of the Year award for her environment, conservation, and advocacy on bamboo consultancy.

She was an alumna of the first Husika program, Axelerataz movement, where she had a capacity building training on Digital Advocacy and learnt on the power of social media and opportunities that exist in it. “The knowledge and skills I gained from ELF have positively impacted my advocacy of Bamboo at national level and grassroot level.”

“One of my major interest in life is being at the forefront of the Bamboo policy, especially now that it’s considered a cash crop. The digital advocacy training is helping me in creating platforms to discuss the bamboo policy and the way forward as a country.”

Wendy holding her Top 35 under 35 award

Her most difficult part of her journey has been being a youth in a space where most youth are rarely found. Being in the environmental conservation space has been hard for and pushed her to tougher and consistent as she engages her peers on the same.

“Moonlight Initiative has begun planting Bamboo along river Nyando. With the digital advocacy training I got, it helps me run good campaigns on social media. This has earned me an award with Top 35 Under 35 Youth of the Year: Environment, Conservation, Advocacy,” Wendy.

Wendy has picked several lessons along the way but has three key lessons:

  1. Discipline: As a young leader, having personal principles is key to longevity in any industry. It takes extra ordinally discipline to stand out in a crowded industry. It helps in dealing with compromising situations.
  2. Consistency: Time is a huge factor to success. This separates passionate people from people with a ‘get rich quick scheme’ mindset. Giving up is not an option when you have identified your calling in life.
  3. Mentorship: it saves time and helps one avoid mistakes they would otherwise not known without a mentor.

Moving forward, Wendy plans to establish a bamboo cottage industry at grassroot level in Kenya. “I also encourage my peers to follow the right role models and mentors. Its key to success.”

Winfred Mukosi: From noise to voice to impact

/12 Comments/in , , , , , /by

Winnie is a Moi University graduate with a Bachelor of Business Management. She is the founder of Linda Watoto, a Community Based Organisation (CBO) that runs its operations in Makueni county. The CBO advocates for children rights, mentors’ kids to grow and be part of a promising generation that will run the nation in later days. She is also an advocate for gender equality and equity. An enthusiast of politics and governance, Winnie is the current county lead of Tunaweza in Makueni county where she leads advocacy for good governance and youth engagement.

I am a living testimony, of transformation; from being a noise maker, to a voice of the voiceless.

Besides being the Tunaweza county lead and founder of Linda Watoto, she is also a member of the Regional Women Forum of International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, an appointment she recently got to serve in the Kenyan chapter of ICGLR RWF as the person  in-charge of Humanitarian and Social issues pillar at national level. In the line of children and gender rights, she is a member of Makueni county gender-based violence (GBV) committee and a trained anti-GBV champion by the gender violence recovery centre of Nairobi women. Currently she is working on having a POLICARE centre – a one-stop centre for handling GBV cases- in Makueni county.

She credits much of her current confidence and abilities to her ELF training. Through this, she got to understand herself and started unlocking her potential and activating them.

“My first interaction with ELF Africa was in June 2018 during the youth devolution conference. I learnt so much about devolution and the NOISE to VOICE became my assignment. Seven months after the devolution conference, I heard that ELF was coming to our county, I expressed my interest to be part of the team that was trained. That was the greatest eye opener to my advocacy and governance work: the budgeting process, the county government documents, the devolution structure, roles of every leader, how to get information and the petition process. By the end of the training I became a VOICE.”

She has also been able to grow on her digital advocacy skills, personal branding, and fact-finding courtesy of her Husika training, that she got at ELF.

As the Tunaweza county lead, she is leading a team of 22 young vibrant members who together, they train and share their advocacy knowledge with other people in the county and lead. They also train people on social accountability and the budgeting making process.

“This country is full of energetic youth, if ELF and other stakeholders can reach out to each and everyone one of them and make them unearth their potentials, I am sure it will leave most of them transformed. We should not be united when tearing each other down but when building ourselves and the nation,” Winnie.

“I am a living testimony, of transformation; from being a noise maker, to a voice of the voiceless and I can see the great impact. From noise to voice and impact”

 

 

PAZA SAUTI

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

“Can we link up online?” and “What’s your handle?” are questions we get one too many times.

The advent of social media not only revolutionized access to information, but also created platforms for self-expression by users. In today’s world, half a day off social media means missing out on real-time updates, and having to play catch up. Twitter is always ablaze and WhatsApp has become a staple for households especially in Kenya. The Visual Capitalist recently shared analytics on an internet minute: 481,000 tweets sent, 38M messages on WhatsApp, 3.7M queries searches on Google, and $862,823 spent online, not to mention Netflixing fans and Instagram scrolls. What’s more, the future is predicted to have higher projections. No doubt, social media remains a fundamental tool for product outreach in every sector and community.

Kenya, a developing and young nation with a median age of 19 grapples with a myriad of governance challenges. Top on the list of them all are mismanagement of public funds and poor leadership that have robbed a majority of young people, opportunities to make true their dreams. In identifying possible solutions to these challenges, citizen responsibility is key in reclaiming the country’s resources and opportunities. The youth, who form over 60% of the population have a key role in ensuring effective management of public resources, through the available avenues. Digital advocacy is one of the tools with the potential to not only put public officers to account but also enhance citizen participation in governance processes.

So how can we leverage on these platforms to build impact around good governance? At ELF, we firmly believe that young people have all it takes to harness the power of social media and transform their communities. We can drive social campaigns to empower others, eradicate drug abuse, call out ineffective leaders, share and teach best practices, market youth skills, put an end to impunity and inspire action. The impact of digital advocacy efforts as proved by previous campaigns such as #FeesMustFall, #MyDressMyChoice, #SomeoneTellCNN cannot be ignored. The revolutionary Arab Spring in 2010-2012 in which Middle East countries successfully opposed oppressive government regimes, largely owes its success to social media.

The ‘axeleretaz’ initiative is a game changer; an enabler of progress. 10 youth drawn from Makueni, Nairobi, Kakamega, Mombasa, and Nakuru are part of the first phase to be inducted through digital advocacy. They are community advocates in the areas of budget processes, reproductive health, active youth participation in political processes, mobile journalism and civic engagement.

The team is on a mission to not only highlight governance gaps as experienced in their communities, but also contribute to their solutions. Through research and consultations with stakeholders, the axeleretaz will share community stories of best practices on citizen responsibility; policy processes and governance.

We trust that you are taking note of the governance gaps in your community, and while at it, you and your peers are working on ways of solving the challenges to achieve the change you desire. Join the Axeleretaz Movement (@axeleretaz) in highlighting the same online and together, let us be the voice and accelerators of the change we so much need.
#AxelerateKE @axeleretaz

 

By Stella Nderitu,

Programmes Officer, Governance