Eastleigh Youth

Children at the Eastleigh Community Centre enjoying a fresh mandazi made by enterpeuring youth from the centre's vocational school.

(A mandazi is a Kenyan version of the donut).

Electric meter boxes drying in the afternoon sun at the Eastleigh Community Centre's metal work shop. A group of enterprising students have been putting their new skills to work and have earned a contract for supplying these boxes within Nairobi.

Last Thursday, we shared in a morning with a group of young entrepreneurs at the Eastleigh Community Centre. For many of the young people who complete Kenya's standard eight level (comparable to Canada's eighth grade), academics give way to the immediate need of contributing to their household's income. For this reason, all of the students at the Eastleigh Community Centre's primary school are introduced to the basics of financial management, and micro enterprise development at a young age. Many of the students will enroll into one of the centre's nine vocational programs immediately after completing standard eight.

These catering students (pictured above) range in age from 14 to 22 years old, and together they are already running small business that employ their new skills. Our prayer is that more of the Somali youth, with whom we are working, will take advantage of these training opportunities and find ways of helping their own families. It is truly inspiring to be with such optimistic and hope filled people!