By Tom Ademba
Spring 2018
Aid the Needy is a community-based organization registered by the Ministry of Social Services operating in Rachuonyo South Sub-County, Homa-Bay County in Kenya. It was started in 2007 through initiatives of local young people to spearhead development among unemployed young people. The organization has transformed lives through sustainable small-scale self-help initiatives. To help young people start their own businesses, we give them vocational skills, including training in sewing, masonry, and carpentry.
Vision: A community where all are empowered to prosper and lead dignified lives through self-help initiatives.
Objectives:
- To build, equip, and manage a community training centre for young, underprivileged community members to acquire vocational training.
- To train and educate young people out of school, with a special focus on young women, in skills that would enable them to be self reliant.
- To improve the quality of life in the poverty-stricken villages, taking into consideration the cultural context and issues that hinder women from realizing their economic power and potential.
- To stimulate and strengthen community groups, to help them develop income-generating activities, and to enable them to fight stigma and prejudice.
Some of our achievements:
- Since inception, the organization has trained many young people, including disabled youths, in vocational skills and enabled them to start their own businesses.
- With funds from Aidlink Ireland, we launched a micro-enterprise project to support small-scale farmers.
- We received funding from World Mercy Fund Austria to educate young farmers on the agricultural value-added chain so they can earn more income.
- We have recently approached Pedals for Progress to support our community with sewing machines. P4P shipped 72 electric sewing machines to support our training programs and help young people start income-generating projects.
We are grateful to all our partners and in this year we pay our sincere gratitude to Pedals For Progress for the way they fast-tracked the shipment of the sewing machines to support our community project.
P4P thanks the William and Helen Mazer foundation for their continued support and interest in the development of East Africa and for aiding in the cost of shipping 72 sewing machines to Kenya.
Update: the machines arrived in Kenya on 21 June 2018. Here is a note from Tom Ademba.