CFK Africa’s Psychological Counselor, , and Project Officer for the Best Schools Initiative, Vivian Adhiambo, speak about our work to support youth leadership development in informal settlements through value-based sports, education programs, life skills trainings, and more on TV47 Kenya.
“Engaging kids and engaging youths in sports activities is one of the ways that we use to keep them focused. It ensures that they are not out there doing anything malicious. So we have tournaments… and we have impacted over 5,000 youths over the years. That makes sure that they have a channel. There is this saying that we have, “talent is universal, but opportunity is not.” So CFK comes in to bring the opportunity for these kids. They are all talented, they have skill. We bring them an avenue to channel all that they have, and then they are able to progress.
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Kibra is a very dynamic place. All cultures, all peoples are found there. But one thing that has for the longest time been an issue in Kibra is ethnic violence. In the early 2000s, there was this ethnic violence between the Nubians and the Luos. Originally, Kibra was a settlement for the Nubians and over time, other tribes started coming in and occupying the space. So there was this kind of back and forth that “Kibra is ours” – “no, Kibra is ours.” …and so we thought, let’s use football to address this ethnic violence, because football is a universal language. If you go to any country in the world, it speaks to them. It addresses some of their problems, their challenges. It was introduced to use sports to bring peace back to this community.
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All the strategies that we have at CFK are community-led. We make it our business to know what is going on in the community. So we begin by engaging them, the stakeholders, to find out the main need that they have. And it is through that, that we gear our strategies to address these challenges. We ensure that we are not just doing things for the sake of it; we are actually addressing a need. We are not looking at immediate impact, we are looking at impact five years from now. What will the community look like after we are done?”
View the entire interview below.
