kasambara youth cbo

we are a community based organization that is working to ensure self reliance to local youths through easily accessible ,locally available, free  and sustainable practical skills in agribusiness  with a later credit pack( based on trained venture) upon completion of training through which youths are able to replicate the learned skills for self reliance. so far we have trained 50 youths in transforming waste to wealth through black soldier fly farming 50 other are offtaking the produced feeds for intensive fish farming ,50 for improved kienyeji chicken and 50 for community franchise piggery unit. the end result is 200 empowered youths who are interdependent on each other and permanently uplifted from poverty.

on winning these prize, kasambara youth cbo will be able to consolidate all these training together as a practical based agribusiness schools and demo fields where youth with limited lands and in urban street came come and learn for free on  practical agriventure they can run on limited lands.at end training they will get start up inputs which they repay on earning for sustainability purpose and their excess produce is aggregated back to the school for processing and distributions to much needy slums.

i personally am a social entrepreneur and the founder of global change award winning venture green nettle textiles.a company that works to reclaim steepslopes which are not arable by establishing nettle plantation which are native in these lands.we buy nettles stalks from locals for ecofibre production thus elevating poverty to the local commmunity.

Before covid( december 2019) ,business was good and i had 20 young weavers and farmers trainers who were working with us, as lockdown came, operations became hard and we had to disengage them. we crushed their only hope. we went home irregardless of our investment and lived in our small villages and the most important was WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?its during these period that i and my co founders recognised that most youths were sleeping hungry and lacked alternative means of survival,our locality was running short of protein meals(meat,eggs,fish) any time a lockdown was annouced leading to microstarvation and our waste was pilling up from door to door.with youth working in round table self help groups, it wasnt enough to elevate any of above challenges. we formed kasambara youth cbo as aggregate merge of shgs to elevate our problems using our solutions.

800000 youths in kenya joins job market every year, with government and private sectors creating below 100000 direct job opportunities each year, more than 700000 youths are left  out with no jobs.these doesnt account for hundred of thousands of youth who drop out school and primary  and secondary level.the challenge of youth unemployment is compounded by the fact that 90% of all unemployed young people lack vocational skills. with most colleges teaching for employment, job opportunity shrinking due to failing economy, the gap seems to be widening with population increase. 

however,increase in population posses a direct opportunity,the demand for food will always be on increase,but land doesn't. with non predictable future of covid 19 and lockdowns, local solution to bridge the supply gap and creating local opportunities are needed .

And these what we do.we engage un employed youth in field based practical  agribusiness training through a local demo unit where they learn about practical agribusiness skills based on interest between bsf farming from waste,use of bsf in chicken,fish or pig farming.after the training which last over 3 months,youths are grouped and equipped with credit start up pack  to start an agribusiness venture and interlinked for market.

local solution,by local people for the local population.

we target population at base of pyramid who are desperate and are mostly assumed by other.

running 4 interdependent field base agribusiness training ensure we incooporate all carders of youths based on education level. to start with our bsf farming agribusiness school mostly target street kids and trash collectors who learn how they can convert the organic  waste they interact with  on daily basis to be profit, through cbo inter connections all their produce is absorbed by women and girls trained in improved kienyeji chicken raring and young men in fish and pig raring.these ensure assured sustainable  returns to our engaged youths post engagement and possible scale within a closed ecosystem.

with us acting as the 1st market of our produces, we are less affected by macro economics of other regions during lockdowns

by providing practical agribusiness training to the vulnerable population in base of pyramid coupled with later credit pack empowerment to start their venture,we are able to change lives for good from eradicating poverty and hunger within our community.

we have seen people suffer,dying of starvation and microstarvation.youths loosing hope to a point of suicide or organised armed criminals, we can see the gaps that shall be there in future if we dont act now,

thats why we are acting now to impact sustainably and in a circular manner to humanity.

so far we have bootstrapped and have established bsf,poultry ,fish and piggery farm and different farms. though training are consuming lots of energy, we are working to recoup credit packs given to the 1st groups of 200 youths so as to sustain the current group in training as we work on sustainable model.

our circularity and interdependence makes us easy to scale and effective