Day: October 31, 2022

The Innovations team organized a Youth Entrepreneurship Day on the 22nd of October 2022, at Swahili Pot, Mombasa County, Kenya, in partnership with several external entrepreneurial stakeholders and other partners such as KEPSA, Somo Africa, Tech Kidz, Strathmore Business School, and Close The Gap.
The grand event attracted hundreds of people majority being women and young people who show-cased their products from as early as 8:00 am in their allocated stalls. There were more than twenty-two vendors already set up in the first hour. Most participants were drawn from Mombasa, Kwale, and Tana River with innovatively designed products ranging from Eco-Friendly Charcoal, Textile Merchandise, and Paintings to leather clothes and shoes among others.
The team also organized focused meetings with the youth and select panelists from the attending entrepreneurial stakeholders.
The first-panel discussion focused on empowering the youth with the right business mentality and practical ways of choosing the best line of entrepreneurial work.” The panelists encouraged the youth to consider enterprise development as a means of livelihood instead of relying only on formal employment. They demonstrated practical ways of identifying viable businesses and discussed getting past youths’ common challenges in entrepreneurship.

The second-panel discussion involved Kenya Small Business Development Centre(Strathmore University) representatives, Global Opportunity Youth Network (GOYN), and KEPSA. They took the youth through practical ways of identifying and getting grants and the required commitment of the sponsors.
Besides this, The French Red Cross launched a hybrid Women Social Entrepreneurship Program, attracting a lot of interest from the attending young women. There was also a robotics challenge whereby the beneficiaries joined into two groups for a Robotic Hackathon Presentation on making innovative gadgets for Sustainability. One team was doing an Automated Dustbin, and the other was doing a boat meant for persons with disability. Prizes were awarded to the winning team.

Led by the Overall Manager, Priyanka Patel, the Innovations Unit is at the forefront of organizing entrepreneurship initiatives and opportunities to raise awareness among youth on the importance of considering enterprise development as a livelihood. The Youth Entrepreneurship Day will be a yearly event.

The International Center for Humanitarian Affairs (ICHA)’s Sarah Nduku- Policy and Advocacy Manager, and Peter Murgor- Cash and Voucher Assistance Manager, gave opening remarks and updates on the drought Early Action Protocols (EAP) during the Development of the Anticipatory Action Roadmap focused meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The four-day meeting brought together various stakeholders like Kenya Red Cross, World Food Programme, Welthungerhilfe, Save the Children, ICPAC, The National Disaster Operations Centre (NDOC) of Kenya, The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), Kenya Meteorological Department for high-level collaborative discussions on Anticipatory Actions.
The purpose of the meeting was to map the stakeholders working on anticipatory action in Kenya. It was also intended to showcase the products and services developed to support Anticipatory Action and to discuss how to enhance the linkage between the county and national-level procedures that support anticipatory action.

On day two, the stakeholders gave presentations on their experiences, priority areas, gaps, and opportunities identified in their Anticipatory Actions. On the third day, they discussed data’s importance in generating evidence for early action interventions. On the final day, they had group discussions and presentations on the roles & responsibilities of different critical stakeholders on resource mobilization and the importance of strengthening coordination and institutional arrangements on Anticipatory Action. They also identified various agencies responsible for implementing proposed priority interventions on anticipatory actions and triggers.
A team consisting of some of the attending stakeholders will be formed to review the resolutions of the meeting and establish a high-level Anticipatory Action Roadmap which will be documented and used in Kenya for climate change interventions.

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The anticipatory action approach is a practical way to minimize and avert the loss and damage caused by climate change.
In Kenya, the frequency and intensity of droughts and floods have weakened communities’ coping capacities and resilience and have increased their vulnerability, accounting for over 70% of disaster impacts. Kenya is ranked 152 out of 181 countries globally of countries most vulnerable to climate change and readiness to improve resilience.