After losing her job in Nairobi, Nancy Bulinda relocated to Vihiga County and discovered many challenges facing the youth. Inspired by this, she decided to establish Mentor Dada Foundation, an organisation that mentors and creates opportunities for young people.
Nancy first registered Mentor Dada in 2016 as a community based organisation (CBO) and initially had offices in Nairobi, before relocating to Hamisi, Vihiga County.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in business management, and a higher diploma in management of information systems. She also has a certificate in psychology.
What compelled you to establish Mentor Dada Foundation?
When I relocated to Vihiga County after I lost my job through redundancy in 2019, I realised that the youth in the county were grappling with several issues and challenges. These included teenage pregnancies, drug abuse and unemployment. The youth I spoke to clearly lacked a supporting hand and a mentor to guide them. Since I had a passion in community service and a vision to transform lives, I embarked on setting up an office in the village. We now offer services in the entire county.
Did this initiative require huge sums to start?
Being a community based organisation, we followed the normal legal registration at the county level. We paid Sh5,000 to get the certificate of registration, which was not much because I was really passionate about improving the lives of the youth in Vihiga.
Do you run the organisation single handedly?
We have three volunteers that handle different programmes. We however welcome different professionals who normally come in to support programmes like mental health, drug abuse, and to offer guidance and counseling services.
What exactly do you hope to achieve?
Mentor Dada Foundation handles different programmes that affect the youth in Vihiga County. These include drug abuse, teenage pregnancies and unemployment. Currently, we are working on creating self-employment opportunities to young people who have graduated from government sponsored polytechnics. At our centre, we take in youths who engage in activities that are aligned to their skills, and teach them how to make a living. For example, currently we have individuals who are offering catering services. They prepare snacks and meals and then sell the foods in offices. This way, they earn a living through self-employment.
Where do you source the money to run your day-to-day activities?
We largely depend on friends who buy our food items. The catering team also offers their services in meetings, weddings, funerals and different events across the county whenever called upon. We would however appreciate greatly if the county government of Vihiga or other donors would partner with us and help us transform the centre into an industrial place so that we can accommodate more youths, especially those with diverse skills in areas such as fashion and design and carpentry. This way, we can make clothes or uniforms for sale, and furniture, and the proceeds from this venture can sustain the organisation.
What are your greatest achievements so far?
Since we started in 2019, we have visited over 20 schools and offered mentorship and career guidance services. We have also visited five vocational training centres, including Kaimosi and Gimomoi training centres. Through this, we have witnessed reduced cases of teenage pregnancies and drug abuse. Our current programme aims at creating employment for 20 young people through entrepreneurship.
What are some of the challenges you have experienced?
The greatest one is lack of support from the parents, especially on the issue of teenage pregnancies. The community is yet to embrace education and career progression, especially among girls. Young people here marry or get married as early as age 16, and whenever we talk to their parents, we find out that they are OK with that. If the youth were encouraged to avoid early, unprotected sex, then the vice could be controlled. But to do that, we need the support of all stakeholders, including the parents.
Another challenge is the young people’s perception of work. Many of them prefer white-collar jobs, to an extent where they become reluctant to use the skills they get from polytechnics. This generation doesn’t like to get tired. They prefer waiting for job offers from established offices, which is also contributing to high unemployment rates. If these young people could show up at our centres, then we could easily help them develop a self-employment strategy.
The other challenge is lack of funds to acquire the equipment necessary for the establishment of various departments such as carpentry and tailoring.
What are your future plans?
Our five-year strategic plan is to develop our centre into a fully-fledged juakali sector, where we can offer employment to youth who graduate with different skills from government sponsored polytechnics. We are looking at empowering people economically to reduce poverty levels, reduce teenage pregnancies and build our county. BY DAILY NATION