Global Fellows Meet in Kenya

By Geoffrey Waringa, Goldin Global Fellow, Kenya

On Feb 3rd, 4th and 5th, GATHER global alumni from Uganda Miss Diana Alaroker and Geoffrey Omony of Youth Leaders for Restoration and Development (YOLRED), the first organization designed and run by former child soldiers, attended an Anti-Slavery Knowledge Network workshop in Nairobi, Kenya.

During the workshop, they made time to link up with me, GATHER Global alumni from Kenya Mr. Jeff Waringa, and it was a very joyful meet-up for people who have virtually know each other for more than a year but never met physically.

The three of us had very fruitful discussions centered on the possibility of working together on a regional scale. We noted the challenges of real time communication with all GATHER fellows from the East African region due to engagements and access to online communications amongst them. However, we made a commitment to start the conversation and get something going that the rest of the East African fellows could join later.

They made arrangements for a further meeting the next day which was the Ugandans’ day of departing. They made time to meet in between other meetings and on the ride to the airport. On the last day, they visited Goldin institute’s partners Arigatou Kenya offices in Nairobi, where they also had very pleasant discussions with Dr. Dorcas Kiplagat about the YOLRED projects in Uganda. Dorcas and I also had a pleasant meeting, and I updated her on my work in Kenya and the challenges I’m facing in combating the wave of violent extremist radicalization on the Kenyan coast.

The meetings ended well and commitments were made to remain in constant communication towards further collaborations.


Nothing For Us Without Us

On the 3rd of October, 2018, we at Youth Leaders for Reconciliation and Development (YOLRED) hosted our community visioning summit, an important part of the Gather curriculum, which was attended by 56 community members from various categories including youths, older people, and local leaders.

During the sessions, participants were formed into four groups by Diana Opira Alaroker, a YOLRED staff member and also a Gather Fellow who served as facilitator, to give possibilities to everyone to discuss the community assets they have. The leaders from these groups later made a presentation based on their identified community assets and Diana presented a summary as well as shared with them the asset map.

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I then took the participants through what adaptive challenges are, asked how do we as a community respond to such challenges as well as the opportunities and the vision for the future. Collectively, the participants identified land conflicts, alcoholism, their voices not being heard, stigmatization, and segregation of the former child soldiers and their children, laziness and corruption among others as being adaptive challenges. They noted, however, that taking a joint leadership and responsibility by every member of the community might provide answers to such challenges.

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Looking into the opportunities and the vision for the future, the participants considered greatly exploiting and putting land into use as one of their most valuable assets and noted that this also will provide opportunities to employ the unemployed youth. Similarly, they also viewed the Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLA) scheme as one way of improving their social cohesion and avoiding segregation since it brings people together and requires them to work together. This will improve their household income as well and put them in position to manage their basic needs and attain financial independence.

On speaking to 56 participants of the summit, the Hon. Susan Lapat, a community representative to the office of the Mayor, asked the participants to put into practice what they have learned, adding that this is an eye opener programming to the community that keeps the brain thinking. For long, people have had assets in their community unexploited and hence remained in their current situation. Consequently, she asked the members of the community to now start exploiting and putting into use the assets they have, including engaging the leaders, the Gather Fellows’ teams and other stakeholders in order to realize a joint community leadership towards achieving the change we want in our community. In the same way, the Chairman of Local Council 1 also asked the participants to embrace love and trust for one another so that they can realize the dreams of their shared aspirations as a community.

At the end, everyone was able to realize that “There is nothing for us without us.”

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Geoffrey Omony serves as Executive Director of Youth Leaders for Restoration and Development (YOLRED), the first organization in Uganda designed and run by former child soldiers.


Going Big in South Africa

What a year! What a week! Two years ago, I set out on a crazy journey of helping African youths discover their light – their creative talents – and supporting them to shine this light by transforming their creative talents into solutions to critical challenges facing their communities. I founded an organization called Global Leading Light Initiatives, a grassroots initiative with a global focus in mind aimed at enhancing the capacities of youths to be real assets, and not liabilities, to their communities.

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Two years on, with no funding, GLLI has been able to generate community impact which most million-Rand-funded organizations only dream of achieving. This achievement has been thanks to tens of passionate local and international volunteers who have been attracted by our work to give their time and other resources.

The Gather Course has made me understand how many assets I have and how I have been under-utilizing them. And so I decided to go big.
At the end of September, in collaboration with the Association of Universities in South Africa, our organization brought the 2018 National Entrepreneurship Week to our community. GLLI hosted the first Student Entrepreneurship Roadshow at Walter Sisulu University, featuring 3 of South Africa's hottest celebrities and officials from the Association of Universities of South Africa, headed by their CEO, Dr. Norah Clark.

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Through this event, hundreds of emerging entrepreneurs from Walter Sisulu University and 6 high schools were inspired to create solutions to critical challenges. Students were offered great sponsorship opportunities to become innovative.

In mid-October, we finally we held our Community Visioning Summit! It was a wonderful day, with a total of 69 participants – 41 students, including 15 from Walter Sisulu University and 26 from 5 high schools in Mthatha as well as 28 adults, 1 official from the Department of Social Development, 8 teachers, 3 university lecturers, 4 social workers and 12 community members.

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The youths taught us many things on that day and based on what we are seeing in our community, we can "Build prosperity on resources in which poor people are rich" i.e. their talents, skills, knowledge and culture.

The day after our Community Visioning Summit, I was invited by the department of education to make a presentation at a district teachers' workshop. A majority of high schools in Mthatha district were represented by a teacher at the workshop. I gave an overview of the Community Visioning Summit and shared the experiences with them. Most of the teachers were disappointed they couldn't make it.

I made a presentation about Iziko, our community and school-based parenting program aimed at building healthy child-adult relationships to support young people achieving their full potential.

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It was a great honor. Many teachers want to join the "Iziko." They also want our student-entrepreneurship program in their schools.

Dieudonne Anumbosi Allo from the Eastern Cape in South Africa is the Founder and CEO of the Global Leading Light Initiatives, a registered non-profit organization formed in 2014 on a strong conviction that collective prosperity can be achieved in Africa and globally through coordinated grassroots initiatives aimed at creating nurturing and enabling environments for children and youths.