Youth......and The Baton.

Just as the baton is passed on to the next person in a relay race, Umande Trust in partnership with SustainableEnergy and three other organisations in Mali, Mozambique and Burkina Faso is now passin on the knowledge, mentorship and  skills required for the youth to make an impact   in Kibera on what youth can do in the face of climate change. Just like on the tracks where The Baton symbolizes the legibility of the athletes and their union; Umande Trusts seeks to encourage the youth on the need for a Green Future.

The Baton Members in the first meeting

Already, the youth have embraced this task and are coming out to formulate ways in which they can contribute towards realising a green future. Youth have identified themes such as  clean energy, sanitation, waste management and afforestation  as the major area of interest that they need to embark on. The "race" begins with the clean energy project. To implement this, youth will hold  weekly meetings for planning. The first meeting will actually be an  induction meeting held to empower the group after which there will be a simple go out to the community to map the actual needs.  The youth will be educated on the various types of clean energy such as electricity, solar energy, biogas and gas cylinders that can substitute the jikos and lantern lamps used to cook and lighting in Kibera and Manyatta in Kisumu as it is now.

The next step will be to map out specific homes in the community that are in need of the change. The activity will involve selected people knowledgeable about the  energy sources, their uses, impact they have ,how they are used, their merits and demerits and most important of all the change they will make to better the lives of the selected households. This process need to identify alternative ways of lighting and cooking and how to make them  affordable to people living in low income areas. Moreover an experimental representative sample is set to be done during the Christmas holiday to try out the alternative clean energy sources.

Community sensitization will follow suite. Meetings with the youth, being the target group will be held, forums created and even one on one session with the youth shall be conducted. Awareness will be enhanced by the media through the local community radio, Pamoja FM. School based activities like debates and discussions and community based forums and outreaches willll also form part of the campaign.. This will enable the youth to learn more about the alternative sources of energy and why they are useful, for instance, to their health and environment as a whole.

Documentation in this project will be  innovative and digital rather than writing. While it is important to retain the traditional way of documenting, youth will be called to try new media like social media and upload activities in the social media dashboard. These will include: Facebook, twitter, instagram, blogging, whatsapp and YouTube. Visual aids will also be used where necessary to make the impacting of knowledge more appealing to the youth.