Contribution short abstract:

My goal is to engage young people in programs that help them identify opportunities within their environments and pursue them through a strategic plan, fostering focus, resilience, and sustainable projects.

Contribution long abstract:

Am a community mentor of a youth and children-led platform supporting 70 participants based in a village within Huruma informal settlements. Our mission is to empower youth and children in our community by addressing poverty, unemployment, and fostering self-reliance through arts, sports, climate change, entrepreneurship, and knowledge management.

The platform has created a youth and children initiative, focusing on mentorship, education, arts, sports, peer education, climate change, entrepreneurship, and project innovation. One of a large initiative we are working is waste management behavior change. In our community center, each and every student is voluntarily needed to identify plastic or paper waste, that is; plastic bottles and polymer bags only in their respective homes/schools. Store the collection in their homes or set aside dustbins for only plastic bottles until it reaches a considerable amount of kg. bring the collection to the community hall’s container for weight recording, data entry and storage.

The data entry involves registering the student names according to the amount of plastic or papers weight, in which they earn points.

The plastic collection stored is then sold to recycling companies respective of current market prices. Money earned is then divided in accordance with the student’s points earned and used to buy stationaries i.e. writing books, pens, calculators among others.

The program is set to be managed by outgoing high school students, to give them opportunity to give back to the community. For more information watch this 3-minute video via our fb link here. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18hWNY9Kcd/