YOUTH FIRST KENYA AND SOWED: HELPING TEENAGERS REALIZE THEIR DREAMS
By: The Partnership, Psipse
Tags: Kenya, Sdgs, Life Skills, Sdg4, Education

Students at Olooetepes Primary School in share a laugh with their teacher during a Youth First Kenya lesson. The program, implemented by SOWED Kenya, together with Corstone, builds social and emotional skills for teenagers.

In the spacious classroom at Olooltepes Primary School, the class 8 students are sat with their desks in a circle — deep in a class discussion about their long-term goals.

One student raised his hand. “I want to become a lawyer.”

Other students — dressed in their signature maroon and blue uniforms — also raised their hands to share their future career goals.

Neurosurgeon. Pilot. Doctor. Veterinarian.

The answers roll off their tongues easily. These 13 to 14-year-old students have probably spent most of their short lives so far repeating these answers, to whoever asked, without much thought.

But the students become more doubtful when their class teacher asked them how they plan on reaching this long-term goal, especially when they take into account the more immediate goals needed to achieve these dreams.

“Short-term goals take less time that long-term goals to reach,” the teacher explained. “For you to be a doctor, you need many short-term goals to reach that long-term goal.”

For many of the teenagers at the Olooltepes Primary School here in Kajiado County in Kenya, thinking about ways to achieve immediate success in order to reach long-term career goals is not something they are used to being asked.

But they get to consider these things as part of the pilot program of Youth First Kenya, a resilience and health training program that builds necessary social and emotional assets for teenagers to tackle life challenges. This particular part of the Youth First Kenya pilot is run by the Social Welfare and Development Program Kenya (SOWED Kenya), an organization founded in 1998 that works within gender governance, health and education areas using existing national, regional and international human rights framework. (They also partner with another Partnership-funded organization,Basic Needs Basic Rights, to implement the Youth First model in Kenya)

Youth First Kenya’s goal is simple: by adding coping and resilience skills to a child’s life arsenal, how can you impact their lives? The Youth First model, first piloted and implemented in India, shows that such an approach can successfully reduce rates of depression, improve social skills, prevent drop out, and improve academic results.

“The idea is to build the children’s capability to cope and to overcome and to thrive in difficult home, community, and school environments,” said Karanja Muraya, the executive director of SOWED Kenya. “We want to help children build coping skills for instance on how to solve problems, effectively listen and how to set goals. We believe that children should be able to cope because this is a difficult county.”

Choosing to work with class 8 students, that are soon facing the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam, is intentional. To begin, this national exam that decides your secondary schooling future is the first major educational test that many of these students face.

Also, the teenagers are facing the ups and downs that come with adolescence. For girls especially, the added challenge of menstruation, early marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM) are key problems that come their way.

“So if we intervene [at this age], we are likely to have fewer children dropping out, but also more children performing well and transitioning to secondary school,” Muraya said.

The four schools piloted in 2018 saw a dramatic improvement in the lives of the Class 8 students involved.

First, their KCPE scores improved by nearly 60 percent among 3 of 4 of the schools. Further their transition rate, the number of students advancing to secondary school, also went up.

The impact of Youth First Kenya has also been seen outside the classroom. Olooltepes Primary School Headmaster Ntoro Rafael confirmed that the students who went through the Youth First coursework last year have made major life improvements.

“Gradually, I started seeing a change of attitude from the class that was involved. We saw our learners setting targets in life, and specific subjects. And they started to communicate boldly and challenge situations.”

The headmaster added that parents of the students also shared their own success stories.

“If a learner gains confidence, he/she can solve emerging issues,” he said. “Confidence gives the child opportunities to scope other parts of the world. When confronted with a situation, they can assertively communicate the right way to go.”

Back at the classroom as the students continued their lesson on long-term goal planning, that newfound confidence can be seen as they shared how they will pursue their short-term goals. And their answers showed it.

With creativity, persistence, hard work and hope.