 This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. Many desire to see transformation happen around them, but who is to take on that responsibility? Victor Omondi has more. Victor, what can you say has brought you this far? Okay, I'm Victor Elvis Omondi. I'm a young person from Kisumu County. I work in Nyalenda community, which is informal settlement. So I run a CBO, a community-based organization, which is a youth led, called Nyalenda Young Task Community-Based Organization. So Nyalenda Young Task is a community-based organization. As the name suggests Nyalenda, Nyalenda is a community name called Nyalenda Aslami in Kisumu County. So Young Task is a group of young people, volunteers that came together to support our community with various information, various resources, and working with various partners that might not know where Nyalenda is, so that we can get resources into our community. Yes, so Nyalenda Young Task is a, we work in Kisumu County, in seven sub-county Nyakaach, Seme, Muroni, and we work with young people between the age of 15 to 35. So we have different programs, sexual reproductive health, gender-based violence, environmental and personal hygiene. We do education programs. We also help in COVID-19 sensitization because COVID is with us. And what inspired you? What is the inspiration behind Nyalenda Young Task? Okay, during the pandemic COVID-19, there were a lot of young people that lost job opportunity because in our notion we have been believing that everybody should be going for white collar job. So when we realized that during COVID-19 so many companies, so many institutions were not able to give us those platforms to work, many people were back at home. So we resolved to have a different angle of where we can do things within our social or where we just come together and bring different ideas together to work and make a change in our community. So we started with the doing sensitization of COVID-19 where we could get newspapers, we could distribute PPEs through charitable organizations, we could work with the churches, we could work with the government, both county and national government, specifically the Ministry of Health. So we were giving out, we were distributing COVID-19s, PPEs and those other things. We were sensitized members of our community of each around social distancing. We also help in demarcation of Moistadiam kibuwe during those kind of period. So during that time we identified our community had a lot of issues. These issues were disability. There are a lot of people who are with disability but they were not having disability card. So if you don't have disability card, you cannot get government services, exemption from KRA and those kind of social responsibilities. So we worked with the National Disability Council to help us in registration for these people. There were extreme cases where these people could not work from their houses to where our officers are because they lack assistive devices. So we also make an arrangement on how they can get these assistive devices. And as organization we have distributed more of wheelchairs to the vulnerable, the children with special needs and even youth with disability. There was a bit of issues around the inclusion of personal disability. So if you get to, if you come to our office being that we are supporting personal disability we have inclusion even in our body structure even in terms of our staffing because disability is one of our beneficiaries in the community. So we give them platform for employment, platform for education and those kind of things. Wow and you can do anything you wanted but why did you choose this organization? Yes we decided to do this so that we can air our challenges within the community because there are a lot of things that are happening within the informal settlement that are not being seen outside. So we give them a platform so that people can come together and discuss and that's why we have been creating platform for community dialogue, community barazas so that people come and share their challenges what they feel is not working out well for us. If you are not having a proper health facility in Kisumu how can we do that? Those are the initiatives when we through public participation in our community. And is this what you've always wanted to do? Is it your area of study or how is it? Me as a person was a studied journalism for some time but in my line of work and internship I realized there are a lot of issues but these issues you cannot change it at one person is a collective responsibility. So I thought of bringing in an initiative that is a community driven and that's why we are having in Nyalenda Yankas Community Best Organization. So the activities we are doing are community owned, they are community driven. Before we do any exercise or any program we always have a community dialogue so that we do situation analysis. Like for example if issues around teenage pregnancy that we are experiencing in Nyalenda, we bring parents, we bring religious families, we bring MCAs, those kinds of people put them into consideration even the young girls themselves so that they discuss their own issues. So we are making a change that is community owned that members of the community are actively participating to it. You speak Nyalenda young tax but you've mentioned that you do around different sub counties. Why is it that you named your organization Nyalenda but you operate in different sub counties? Is there something that's changed? All right when we were starting this we thought this initiative was for Nyalenda alone because the higher number of our staffing by then when we were forming this were people within this particular locality. But when we realized the challenges that are being faced in Nyalenda the same in Obunga and the same in Manyata and the same in Awasi, Central Semi and the rest we started working because as an organization we are allowed to work in the entire county. But our main strength main strength were if you even go to the community and Boda Boda Shed you ask them do you know this particular initiative? We are in Kisumu Central and Kisumu Sub County. Yes. Nyalenda young tax is a non-profit making organization. So if you give us maybe 50 blankets to go and distributed maybe Kappuote where there's issues around flooding we'll just go and distribute that for the whole of it and give you a report. And that will help us with various partners. So Nyalenda young tax has worked with the local partners a global partners as well and in local partnership we have worked with the county government of Kisumu we have worked with Nyalenda youth organization we have worked with the Wovop we have worked with so many UDS named them. In global angle we have worked with different organization we have worked with Fida Kenya where we are referring our cases of EBV we have worked with Trigarise Kenya who are our main funder now and Trigarise is helping us in supporting young adolescent girls on issues around sexual reproductive health information and communities. And Trigarise has helped us to move from paperwork to digital platform so we have a TKO platform so a TKO platform Trigarise we support young adolescent girls with this common design information for free between the age of 15 to 19 we work with the private health facilities for quality services we work with the facility within our community for accessibility because you understand health now should be quality affordable and accessible Yes so in partnership with Trigarise Kenya we are doing demand generation for this and we have various community mobilizers we are working in 11 wards and these 11 wards each ward has 10 mobilizers so these are an employment opportunity for them You seem to be doing a lot of things in your organization What exactly did you when you started Ulu kuna sema ok fine I'm focusing on your lender and this and this is what I will do What changed in between? Yes every community has a lot of issues and the more we are doing our activities the more issues are coming in people are asking a lot of questions because when we started this we were focusing on COVID-19 so people were asking how can we benefit to we pass on with stability when we were walking along the way people were asking this survivors, GBV survivors how can we benefit on this so we identify specific programs and we are having around five programs I know there are a lot of things that happen in our community but we cannot solve all of them so we have identified ourselves with five issues these issues around health where we are doing sexual reproductive health issues around gender based violence and sexual gender based violence issues around environmental and personal hygiene sexual reproductive health and COVID-19 sensitization and issues around food security Yes and your programs how are you able to keep track of them since from Nyalenda you went and expanded the whole thing Okay and that's why what I was saying we have a system in place as organization we have an organization organogram that we are following okay we have our board members who are helping us in resource mobilization then we have management team management team we have executive director we have HR office we have finance office we have a mandate office so a mandate office is monitoring and evaluation that is the department that is helping us in tracking our progress our success reporting to that we are supposed to use and those kind of things we have a HR department that is helping us the kind of staff we are bringing in to help us we have serious and key HR policies that if you want to join us you should be weak particular age academic level should be weak how do we do for you interview how do we do orientation or induction for you how do we motivate our staff how do we pay them those kind of things then we have me as executive director this is doing administration and resource mobilization for my team we have finance department and we have finance policy clear finance policy how we spend our money yes simple simple simple this is basically a company mimi kiliyango kiyongi I am like wow this is a very huge company it is an organization it is an organization not a company we are a non-profit making organization yes but we motivate our team it's a huge platform you have and what are the achievements you've had so far okay we have we started with working with county government of kisumu and now we have a base of around 42 partners that's the biggest achievement we have worked with the zheb from the mariland university we have worked with maisha medicanya we have worked with trigger trigger iskanya we have built capacity of our staff in various issues even in terms of advocacy we have created a platform for nyalenda that is now nyalenda that was people view as in in secured place so there are a lot of young people that are now doing a lot of things we are doing a a program with the planet international on safe and inclusive city that you are targeting border border and those who are doing a small business into the community and we have made a lot of progress and if you look at even border border now they are doing there are a lot of changes and they are smooth operation those kind of industry I see in your vision you say that you want to transform lives and impact skills that bring out a sustainability in the community have you been able to do that? Yes we have we have not achieved it fully because we have a clear goal we have a strategic plan for five years this is our second year we started 2020 now as a certified organization we have a vision where we want to go we are going to be in in five years within our strategic plan but we always do hotel review on our progress but each and every department so we have made a lot of changes and a lot of achievement we have distributed a lot of wheelchairs we have linked so many young girls to this access to basic sexual security health information and communities we have created a platform for personal disability inclusion and you are aware even in Kisumu County we have disability advisor to the governor Karoli Nagwanda who is advising governor on issues around disability inclusion we have a department for youth women and personal disability at the county level we have a ward committee and village committee where we have representative of personal disability in those kind of platforms we have we have disseminated those kind of act disability act to members of our committee and the members of our committee do not understand how they should be working with personal disability in any area they are we have seen a lot of changes even if you go now to Roma Center you can see we now have what is now disability friendly we have left yes so if personal disability want to go and see governor maybe in the ninth floor or you want to go and get those services they just go to the left then they access those kind of services so there are a lot of achievement we can account we work with various community media houses that help us in advocating our issues and the challenges that are happening here and the biggest achievement that we have made this year 2022 is peace campaign we did a lot of peace campaign and Kisumu County we have been perceived to be violent people and people around Nyalenda and Kondali have been identified as hotspot on a peace initiative that we did with the US Embassy to one month to election when we were doing civic education with Urayia US Embassy and so many organization that came in to support this we made a commitment that whatever are the outcome for this election we will remain focused what we are doing we will not be going to street to destroy other people's business and those kind of things and we have made a biggest achievement on that we have given platform for young girls to work with us because if you look at the system of our management so long you fit and you qualify to work with us we give you a platform irrespective of your tribe irrespective of your age and so many people have come and see what we are doing some also have started the organization from where we started and we are happy on how they are progressing that is so encouraging I love that you are an executive director at such a young age and you've taken on such a big responsibility How does that make you feel? I feel good when I see young people doing something making sense to the community because there are a lot of young people are still not fully employed so if we can empower thousands of young girls thousands of young boys to create a working venue that will be giving a more employment opportunity for people so people will not be moving from this particularly and going to Nairobi to over a crowd of there and even urge those who are in rural areas to start agriculture they do their own things that can at the end of the day you will be getting a basic how you support your family or you support yourself also and are there any challenges you have experienced since you started in 2020? Yes, there are a lot of challenges as an organization organization has a system you can be having a system but the system might not be fully adequate you need to look for people to come experts to come and train your people and these people might need you to pay so if you don't have enough resources for this it's become a challenge the community might have a lot of expectations from you and these things are seasonally look for example much if it's a donor funding you can get a program that is funded for six months then it ends so if somebody was still having an expectation to work with you for two years and the donors now bring that particular resource then there are a lot of expectations from we as a young organization then as a young organization is also there is a stiff competition also you can be doing something very grateful but there are a lot of criticism on what you are doing also but if people criticize what you do you make changes because if you are doing something wrong and somebody tell you I am not seeing this working out well then if you take feedback well then you change and make you move on then there was also a challenge on COVID-19 that affected most of our programs and even funding and resource mobilization platforms so those are the key information challenges that are there there also we still lack some policies to guide some of our programs and we are still adding the those who are elected the MPs and the MCS to enact and work on policies that can help young people to do a lot of businesses to empower and do a lot of changes in our community you talked about some of the youth you've been working with have also started their own organizations and they've been able to create some employment through that what are the significant things that you have influenced the youth to do in your community in our community economic empowerment is one of the programs we have been supporting young people where we are doing table banking and savings and we have we partner with equity bank they always come and sensitize our members on how they can be saving and even taking loans and if you go to to Maini but Abodashir we have a lot of people that we have linked to equity and now they have their motor cycles there some of us who are now able to businesses those who are doing agri business and we have those who are making kitchen garden within Nyalanda community to support food security we have create a good leadership skills because if you don't develop you are not good in leadership then you cannot it's not sustainable that's true yes so you have to develop your leadership skills you go to a lot of training give a lot of platform people to criticize what you are doing and you take advantage of those kind of feedback to make you better now you're you're two years in in the organization and you've accomplished this much where do you see yourself in the future okay so uh we want to have satellite office in all the informal settlement in the next 10 years all the informal settlement in Kisumu within the slum the slum areas so that we give our services we make them accessible to the community members because I don't wish somebody moving from Awa Siwajiko to come and get our service in Nyalanda I don't want to see people coming from Obonga just to come and get our services here so we are looking forward in future to have satellite offices where we are having representatives or our staff spread across specific words and if somebody want to get any of our support they just go to our piece and get that and as of now where can you be found yes uh you we have a physical officer in Nyalanda community all capital we also have a strong Facebook page Nyalanda community based organization that's our Facebook page we also have within the Facebook page we have a website there we have all our social media handles there and we have a huge followers of around 6000 people following what we are doing if you ask various partners we will tell them we are going to take government and you can get us I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next so what can you uh what can what are your last words to the community and the youth in general from your perspective and your organization what can you tell the community okay so what I can tell young people is to take advantage of the difficult situation you are in maybe if you are out fun God knows why you are there that is not a permanent situation and your state you are not working with it you can become something better than what you think even if you are doing Django at the end of the day a thousand shillings you are carrying and a thousand shillings that a banker is carrying from maybe with your politician is carrying it's the same van sure sure yes so whatever exercise you are doing for you to earn be disciplined to whatever you are doing keep your job well keep everything you are doing my message for women we have a strength because if you get to a home and this is the woman that you will see a woman bring the husband the woman carry the child the woman is the mother for everything so all these platforms should be given to women also to leaders because they have shown a good example in terms of leadership yes they are not buyers and those kind of things so they can be given a platform and we should be having a society that is very inclusive for persons with disability officers should be disability friendly we should work on policies and programs that support persons with disability so that they are not left behind also thank you so much may the lord bless you and continue keeping you kwaioba that you have said asad this has been youth in action I am yangueso greenis