 We started as an idea and then we had only two scholars. Thankfully we had a friend called Victoria Shepard and other Canadians who have supported us since then. But you had to start somewhere. And that's what I challenge young people to do. When it comes to the aspect of Kanadama Thare Education Trust and the aspect from angle of scholarship and it's provided to brilliant students who are from under privileged backgrounds and they would like to further their studies and they're interested in that. So from that, who is eligible to be part or to just even apply for a scholarship or how do you guys go about it? Thank you, that's a very good question because we are just rolling out our scholarship applications this week before the exam starts for the KCP. We have a criteria and one of the criteria you have to be with high marks. So 345 marks. You have to have such your KCP in a school in Madare. You have to be a resident of Madare. Of course you have to show the needs that without seeing any trust you can barely continue with your high school education. And then you have to be willing to live away far away from home because we take them to national and extra county schools far away from Nairobi. Some of them in Nairobi but most of them we take them to schools outside Nairobi. For them to experience a different culture to be more independent and also to have an environment where they can fully concentrate on education. And the last thing that we focus on we want young people who want to be ambassadors of Madare people who want to give back. When they are that age, 14, 15 years they are very young to know this but they just want to know how do they see Madare from their eyes 10 years from now how do they see Madare how do they think the education will help Madare just to start thinking about the future and how they can be positive model and change agents for the community. So we look at those things you pick a form in our office it's free and then you fill it up and then if you are shortlisted for an interview you come for an interview after the interview we select the final list and then once we select the final list we have a discussion with our board in Canada and then once they approve then we take these kids to high school and university and also in between the school breaks we don't just allow them to sit at home we have a program called where people like you come and talk about journalism and other decisions you have to make in your life at a certain age that have resulted to who you are today and at the tail end of that week they have to do a community outreach program it could be a cleaner, it could be a tree planting it could be a home visit that they themselves organize short resources for we just support them with letters but again encouraging them that you don't need a lot of resources to start giving back you can start with your 50 shillings you can start with a tree planting exercise you can start with a clean up exercise fantastic so Tatis will agree with me that we also have young guys who still end up privileged but they are not so good when it comes to formal education but they are talented in also different areas so does the organization also have space for such young souls ok what we did last year we just hit our 15th anniversary we did big celebrations in the community but at the same time we looked at we did a situation analysis of our program for the last 15 years and we realized we have some gaps when we started some of the scholars were not very high achieving but with time while the program got stronger and more popular we got more high achieving scholars so we are looking at there are still young people who are left out I was recently in a forum where the community were discussing extra deligial killings in Madare 14 young people have been killed in the last 3 weeks in Madare and these are young boys young girls continue having early pregnancies they are still a gap but as Canada mother education trust we cannot fulfill every gap and always tell people that Madare is one big puzzle we all need different pieces to come together as Pamoja initiative that's where we come in we fulfill that one of those gaps we work with youth who are young, who are talented we teach them to be facilitators in different programs we don't look at what they got in high school we don't look at what they got in university or even if they went to university we look at their willingness to give back to the community their willingness to learn a new skill so Pamoja initiative trains young people to be facilitators in different programs that we do in different areas of the community so we work with teenagers we work with adolescents we also work with youth so we device programs then we train this young people who are free, who are transitioning from high school to university or who are transitioning from university to the job market in between instead of them lying around and doing nothing in the community we train them to be facilitators at the same time they learn about personal and community leadership they learn about research using data, analyzing data they also learn about monitoring and evaluation writing reports documenting, using social media there are so many things that we teach them to do but again this is Canada mother education trust and Pamoja initiative we cannot bring everyone together under our organizations that's why I always challenge other people come up with initiative that can fill some of those gaps there are other amazing organizations in the community trying to do that but we also need to do more to inspire other communities to get into the same things that you guys are doing so Tetez will agree with me that young people have time in their hands and crime with drugs are very much associated so what sort of conversation do you have with the young people when you engage them when it comes to the aspect of just the usage of drugs and the aspect also crime as well as an organization what type of conversation do you have this is a big reality drugs, alcohol they are very easy to find in Madare they are very affordable as well so when they use the idol those are some of the things that they would easily access but at the same time we challenge them we give them things to do we give them skills to use it's not just talking about drugs is bad because all their life they know drugs is bad they know alcohol is not the best thing to do but what we need now to do or what we are trying to do is that we provide opportunities for them to learn to have a life skill that they can use and they can be busy and even when they are not in Canada Mother Education Trust they can go out there and use we will find so many of our young people they are in different organizations big organizations in our community and outside our community about facilitation about personal community leadership about working as a team about writing reports they can easily apply for this kind of jobs and get these jobs but it's a continuous conversation you don't just sit the youth down and tell them this is bad you provide a way for them to escape those realities because the realities those things are there so for us is to provide programs to provide a network of people to come and give resources and volunteer their time to make sure that these young people are not idle are not sitting around in bases or in groups but they are using their skills, their time because even some of these young people that are involved in crime and drugs some of them are university graduates who have lost their way they have lost their hope they don't have any jobs they have applied for so many jobs positive response so what do they do they end up hopeless and using these kind of drugs and misusing social media and all that so what sort of programs do you facilitate at Pamoja Pamoja we have different programs like I said ranging from focusing on adolescence there's a one called Adolechat which has an aspect of sexuality leadership and entrepreneurship it's a one year program we have different topics in the three themes that I have mentioned we also have programs focusing on older adolescents and teenagers it's called Sekete the real sex talk program Sekete is a shengwa for sex so this program we talk about sex sexuality sexual identity these sayang people who may not have started practicing sex but they know about sex we want to have a conversation which is free and we talk about all these things in an open manner we also have a conference called Roka it happens every year and this is centered around social entrepreneurship which are many young people from different slums in Nairobi not just Madari to come together and look at the biggest challenges around their community and find the most simple solution bring together ideas work as a team collaborate and they formulate good ideas from that problem and then we are now focusing also on research because we have realized that no matter what you do you have to evaluate your programs and then you have to start with a baseline you cannot just have a program without knowing if it's actually needed or if this is the problem you are going to solve so we have a research department where we have done two research one is called Vaka violence against children and adolescents in Madari we are looking at what is causing violence in Madari against children and adolescents we are formulating a program around that and then recently just a month ago we finished a research called livelihood gender gaps in Madari for youth between 17 to 24 we realize in Canada Madari Education Trust we have given both boys and girls similar opportunities but the boys achieve their potential much higher than the girls so we are looking what are the gaps and then we also went to the community we realize the same boys are the photographer boys are the musicians boys are the politicians where are the girls so we are looking what are the gaps causing girls not to be part of these things so we realize that there are so many issues to do with the economy there are so many issues to do with our patriarchy society the culture the religion the girls themselves the way they are being socialized they are even becoming their own impediment to achieving their greatest potential so we are using a lot of research going forward as and making sure before we start another program we interrogate what is the root cause and then we find the most suitable solution to that problem Alright fantastic Back in 2015 I saw this courtesy of our mother channel KBC and you did an interview I think it is in 2015 one of your beneficiary I can remember maybe you can help I remember she said she was a household but through the organization she ended up being a fashion designer from where you see change growth and just seeing a life transformation how does that make you feel Well I would say those are some of the people that make us wake up every morning looking at the transition from where she was and where she is right now I was there in her graduation when she got a standing ovation she had the best collection and she was there amongst the best but she became the top student in her class so it easily means that for every KT there are 99 of them who are missing out so I am very happy that she could change her life with that opportunity I could be part of that process but I am also worried that not everyone will get that opportunity and that's why I am working hard with partners and friends local and abroad and especially I am challenging people who are here in Kenya they need to come on board and support whatever we are doing because most of the funding most of the support we get from abroad but what you realize these young people are going to develop this country they are going to work in this country they are going to share the talents so I also challenge young people to go out there and look for opportunities locally let's work together find resources locally they cooperate the foundations in Kenya they need to come to Madare and other slams to support this small grassroots organization that are on the ground and we can get more change if we have more resources I have worked with this community work for more than 25 years professionally for 15 years so I know what works, what doesn't work we just need more resources more support, more believe speaking about more resources I am working with young people I am so sure that it has got into a point where someone wants to start a business and they have approached traditional financial institutions where they cannot get alone because they don't have the collateral or proper documentation but how do you manuva through that so for example that's a challenge that we don't manifest so for example with Roka leadership conference what we do is that after the training we teach them about social entrepreneurship how to pitch and all these things we also give them a seed funding of 100,000 after the conference not to everyone but to the best projects but again it's a challenge accessing a seed capital even for established businesses in Kenya it's a challenge that's an area that people need to come in and work that's an area that the government needs to support so it's a challenge but at the same time they are online or opportunities coming up where you can apply there are some ventures so normally I mean different types of groups and I'm always sharing these opportunities with young people for them to apply to this funding they might look small but if you use them well with the fellowship and the support in the funding you can build something out of that again we also need to look at it being a social enterprise it's solving a problem but at the same time you are earning something from it you are creating an employment for yourself but also for the other youth that are around you so again other than just getting the funding you need to know how to use it well you need skills to handle money if I give you half a million and you don't have any skills to handle money setting goals doing badges and all that then the money will not be used well so it's a combination of all these things but I agree with you there needs to be more funding for young people because young people are amazing young people have a lot of good ideas young people need to be given an opportunity to make their mistakes so as we wind up let's look at mental problems facing young people we have depression, anxiety and also trauma in accordance to what they have gone through in their upbringing in that matter so how do you intervene in such a crucial situation we have had different cases especially in our programs both in Canada mother education trust and also in Pamoja we realize that it's a big problem particularly as a person who is there every day you don't realize it's a big problem until when something bad happens to one of your beneficiaries or one of your scholars so what we are trying to do is work with partners that are experienced, are experts in that field coming during our sessions if we have we suspect a kid is dropping down on their grades or a kid is having trouble with other kids always conflicting always fighting, always quarrels we are talking to this organization to partner with them actually next week we have a meeting with Kenya I think professionalization of counselors I'm not so sure if I got the name right but we have a meeting with them whereby we are going to bring them as partners we want to work with them because they are experts we are not experts in that field but we believe this is a big problem and if you indulge me by peer pressure the world is moving too fast the social media, the instagrams all these things so young people also want to keep up with these things comparing their lives there is also pressure for you to perform if you are in our scholarship your parents want you to perform because we also have kids who are going to university right now and graduating so if you are in form one, form two I know your parent is pushing you we are also pushing you, the teachers are pushing you there is a lot of pressure there is issues with relationships so even young people they are going through a lot it's just that we don't understand how to handle them so I encourage everyone to look at this thing as a very serious issue mental health is a big problem and not many many Kenyans are aware or trained on how to respond to this myself I'm still learning and I think I'll continue learning and working with partners so that we can sort out this issue and also creating awareness about it very important if anyone is watching this conversation and they would like to partner with you in different levels from the organization that you are running how can they reach out to you they can come to an office they can come to an office in Mandare they are faced with Taduru there is a small office with graffiti talking about different topics but also you can find us on social media at CME Trust and also at PAA Moja at Pamoja initiative you can always find us there and also CMETrust.org and PAA Moja.org on our official websites and also if you type tight as courier everything will come up thank you for endorsing me I will tight as thank you very much tight as for being with us today thank you very much Michelle for hosting me I really appreciate it so that is tight as courier executive director and co-founder of Kanada Matare Education Trust we are looking at challenges facing and a privileged young Kenyan so guys stay tuned we have so much coming your way at entrepreneurship town Tuesday but in the morning at michela shirezo you can find me across all my social we'll be right back