Community Engagement
Mr. and Miss Kibera:
One of our most popular programs, Mr. and Miss Kibera is an annual pageant hosted by ICA to showcase the talents of Kibera youth and provide them with a mentorship program. After auditions and various competitions six winners are chosen (3 men, 3 women) and spend the year campaigning about various social issues such as HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, and the importance of dialogue and peace building during elections.Community Museum:
The idea behind this project is to create a sense of pride in Kibera residents via a community museum, which highlights the evolution of Kibera. The museum will consist of three parts: sites, people and organizations within Kibera. We hope to implement the museum, which will feature both a permanent exhibit in ICA's Mashimoni office and traveling exhibits, within the next year.
Youth Empowerment
The Eagle Project
The project’s objectives are:
- To provide an outlet for youth to have access to alternative recreation activities
- To provide a source of higher education for a population that is often shut out from public universities and other higher learning institutions
- To encourage creativity, peer education, and critical thinking
- To build both print and E-libraries through which youth will have access to a world beyond Kibera
Building off the equipment we already have (five fully-functional computers and monitors), ICA is supporting Kibera youth by offering a training program in order for them to compete in increasingly computerized Kenyan job market, education that they do not receive in formal school.
Literature is for Today:
Sitting for the KCSE exam is one of the most defining moments in the lives of young Kiberans, as it determines their access to higher education. Few living in Kibera, however, have the resources to access the set-book disks needed to do well on the exam: lack of funds, DVD players and a quiet environment. The Eagle Project provides these resources by holding screenings of the set-books each Saturday afternoon. Form 3 and From 4 students come to view the set-books in the ICA office, free from distraction, and afterwards engage in discussion so that they can come to a better understanding of the material through peer education.
Happyland:
Every Sunday afternoon, ICA hosts local youth in an after school program, where members of ICA spend 3 to 4 hours with the kids either watching educational movies and have a discussion afterward or by playing character building games. The purpose of these sessions is to build self-confidence within the children and also making sure that they build relationships between each other in order to make a stronger, more stable community.
Resource Center:
Given the lack of resources most of Kibera’s residents—not only youths—have, building a resource center is a huge opportunity for ICA better the community. The Eagle Project team envisions this resource center as both a library and computer center. The library will include fiction and non-fiction books as well as educational films. The computer center will be a space in which people can type documents and refresh their memories on their ICT knowledge free of charge.
The Princess Project
The purpose of the Princess project is to strengthen the capacity and skills of the adolescent girls and non-governmental players within Kibera.
Within the project, a mentor is put in charge of up to four groups of 25 young girls. We are currently running sixteen groups with over 600 girls. A well trained core team of eight mentors facilitates sessions on reproductive health, life-skills, and financial literacy.
ICA has also partnered with a financial institution that allows the girls to open bank accounts at no cost where they can keep their savings safely. The girls have further demonstrated the desire to participate more on activities that improve their intellectual abilities and talents.
Civic Participation
Jumuia Zalendo ("A Patriotic Society")
ICA seeks to address the rampant apathy, mistrust, and self-doubt plaguing the majority of Kiberans and specifically young people.. However, given that the new 2010 Constitution is expected to bring power down to the local level, ICA sees an opportunity to build a sense of civic pride in people who have been sidelined, marginalized, and left to merely “survive”. Civic pride leads to the demand for better leadership, and better leadership leads to solutions for Kibera’s socio-political problems.
ICA is proud to announce that in September of this year we will be starting our biggest campaign yet under the idea of Jumuia Zalendo, this campaign, “Ongea Usikizwe” will last for a year, right before the 2012 presidential elections.
The campaign will include youth-led forums each month in each district of Kibera, in order to facilitate free discussion across varying groups. The campaign will then end before the election, with our Mr. and Miss Kibera pageant that unfortunately, due to lack of funds, has not been held since 2008. This closing event will examine the success of Ongea Usikizwe and kick off ICA’s next year’s objectives, focusing on maintaining the attitude of youth involvement and putting forth new issues that ICA feels it needs to address.
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