The Change Ambassadors Soccer Tourneys (CAST) was a project implemented in 6 months between July and December 2017. Its main objective was to enhance the active participation of the youth in promoting a transparent, credible and peaceful electoral process.
One of the significant gains/impact the project had, not limited to, was the formation of a youth leadership foundation. The Kaptembwo Youth Leadership (KYLF) was birthed in September 2017 after the youth in that region realized that there has been a lot of division, economic impairment, and a low capacity status for them.
This fact had greatly contributed to a number of societal ills such as; poor youth development mechanism and insecurity in Kaptembwo area. Armed with such perspective and help of EPTF through CAST’s consistent trainings and subsequent consultations, this entity now looks into the welfare of youths.
Over the last couple of months, EPTF has been able to help the KYLF come up with a leadership structure and a constitution which governs their way of doing things. Some of the objectives that are being covered by this arm include;
- Strengthening community members’ capacity on cohesion and integration.
- Capacity build, promote and increase effective youth participation in devolved leadership and governance in Kaptembwo.
- Lobby and conduct civic education at grass root level in Kaptembwo community.
- Mobilize resources for economically empowering the kaptembwo youth to address the aspect of unemployment and insecurity.
- Lobby, advocate and create awareness on HIV/ AIDS, SGBV, RBA, DRUGS and Substance abuse, SRH, Conflict Management and environment conservation.
Speaking to one of the community facilitators, Mr. John Onyango, he echoed the fact that EPTF CAST project has been an eye opener for them because it came in at a time when they were not certain about the outcome of things as Kaptembwo was a hot bed of Post Election Violence (PEV) in the 2007/08. With the trainings they had received, they thought of a more involving and meaningful way of bringing the youths together to improve their lives.
Kaptembwo Youth Leadership Foundation (KYLF) has since opened office in Stima Line where the youth can go and discuss matters affecting them/community and deliberate on solutions.