Young people are full of optimism and they easily take advantage of opportunities and information that are availed to them.The challenge remains finding avenues where they can access such platforms. GHETTO POTENTIAL TRUST KENYA works to create a four day seminar dubbed Click the World, a concept that brings together thirty five young people from seven slums within Nairobi. The emphasis of this project is to expose the positive side of informal settlements. The youth will be introduced to simple writing skills and online reporting.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Nairobi
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Young people living in the informal settlements have always been linked with negative behaviors such as crime & drugs, prostitution, radicalization and many others, yet the positive side has always not been given much emphasis in the media. This has led to marginalization of creative people within the informal settlements. Ghetto potential Trust works with young people who played an advisory role in the development of this proposal.
The youth groups are to be mobilized from seven slums within Nairobi where Ghetto Potential Trust is active (Kawangware,Babadogo, Mathare, Kariobangi, Majengo, Kayole and Lungalunga). The young people who will participate have basic computer skills. The 35 Youth will in turn target their community members for awareness and sensitization.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
1. Michael Owiti
GBC Kenya.
https://www.facebook.com/gbckenya1
Facebook address:
https://www.facebook.com/michael.owiti.501?fref=ts
http://topdeckseo.com
Blogs done:
www.nabudi.com
www.msemakweli.com
www.kenyanwoman.com
www.dumisha.com
2. Betty Mulatya
Content writer and entrepreneur
https://www.facebook.com/betty.mulatya
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
o The participants will be trained on various ways of documenting stories from within their localities and share them on various social media like face book, Tweeter. They will also learn how to use their phones to share stories.
o Participants will be trained on taking photographs and sharing them on the internet
o The seminar will also encourage the young people to highlight the strength and positive activities happening within the informal settlement. The participants’ blogs will be linked with the ghetto potential trust website.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
Since its formation in 2008 ghetto potential trust have been organizing various interactive platforms i.e the slum fest, Football tournaments, entrepreneurship trainings and capacity building seminars among others to bring young people together to engage and find solutions on issues affecting them. This has brought more confidence in the organization that now has over 200 youth groups and learning institutions who are partners and part of the network.
We also partner with various organizations such as Junior Achievement Kenya,
Yadel East Africa and Ghetto exposed.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
Our project targets 35 young people. We have a database that includes these young people and their contacts. These are people we know and have worked with. Our goal is to teach them to become independent bloggers. We will monitor and guide them progressively.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
The project will deploy the use of free social media/blogging platforms such us Facebook, tweeter, blogspot and wordpress. Ghetto potential and its partners have mobilization skills, computer skills, critical and creative thinking, content writing and capacity building.
Microblogging is simple, easily accessible and sustainable. Young people use social media on a daily basis. It is part of their lives.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
We shall conduct the training at a local hall called the Liberty Centre Nairobi which is six kilometers from the central business district, this will be easily accessed by all the participants. The hall has Wifi connection with a speed of 8mbps which we will boost by 3G modems for efficiency. Ghetto potential trust will provide eight laptops to add to already existing fifteen laptops at the Liberty Centre.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
Ghetto potential Trust works as a networking platform for youth groups within the slums of Nairobi and this makes it easy for the trust to organize the trainings. Over the past we have been organizing various interactive platform such us SlumFest, Football tournament and entrepreneurship trainings. We normally also organize for a general meeting once in a while where we invite all the members.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
Risk
Acceptance of the project by community gatekeepers and the low enforcement authorities.
How we will solve it
Involving and informing them from the beginning and ensuring that the young people understand and promote the project. This is besides building an extensive stakeholders base on governmental, non-governmental, educational and religious groups who support and endorse the project.
Risk
The community viewing the project as another handout project.
How we will solve it
Working along clear set guidelines. The project also has an internal mechanism that will identify and discourage community members whose motives are against the project. Also the project will involve peer to peer approach to explain the reach out to community members.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Ghetto Potential will also ensure proper and systematic documentation of all evaluative tools that will be engaged in the six month program helping verify indicators as reported from the program. Those tools will include;
1. Feedback forms.
2. Photographs.
3. Video
4. Links to various media platforms.
Success is achieved when the young people can manage the blogs successfully without assistance and share them.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
21-23 May 2014: Mobilization
26-27 May 2014 : Training
28 May 2014 – 16 June 2014: Coaching and mentorship
17 June: Training
18 – 30 June: Coaching and mentorship
1 July: Training
2 July: Monitoring and Evaluation
19 July: Sending of report
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Communication and Internet: USD 800
Trainers Transport: USD 250
Training and stationary : USD 300
Refreshments : USD 700
Project coodination fee: USD 205
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
Since we work with young people, we are looking for links with experts in their professional field who will guide and positively criticize our project. They include bloggers, software developers and authors.
Contact name
Michael Wamaya
Organization
Ghetto Potential Trust
1 comment
I am a student from Mount Kenya University in Thika studying a degree in journalism and mass communication.Currently am in fourth year and i feel that having specialised in public relation little is done practically.Semester after semester we fill our books with notes which one forgets after a short while.This is a disadvantage to us as the job market requires us to apply the theory learnt in class.I would love someone to help me with some practical works.Thanks.