Oyugis Integrated Development Organization is a community-based organization initiated in 2013 through concerted efforts of local artisans to create employment opportunities and education programs for the vulnerable men, women, and youth in Rachuonyo South Sub – County, Homabay County in Kenya. The OIDO’s main goal is to alleviate poverty and empower families, women and youth to become self-sustainable and contribute to the economic growth of the community.
Since 2013 Oyugis Integrated Development Organization (OIDO) has offered small, multipurpose training workshops to teach vocational skills for vulnerable men, women, and children. The majority of participants are children in and out of school; unskilled youth and unemployed women, small-scale farmers, and orphans and their caregivers. The majority of the beneficiaries will come from families affected by HIV/AIDS.
But due to lack of machines and tools, most of the training were still theoretical and therefore, did not make the young people employable. Providing the school with all primary machines and tools to give practical lessons was the goal of this project.
OIDO proposed to expand the Carpentry vocational training program with the addition of some equipment and machine tools for which it sought financial support from Kitchen Table Charities Trust.
Once participants have completed their chosen workshops, they will be eligible to seek employment or begin their own business enterprises. OIDO will collaborate with the National Industrial Training Authority to give participants’ certification upon the completion of a workshop equivalent to Government Trade Test Grade 3.
The goal of this project is to reduce poverty in the Rachuonyo South Sub – County in the Homabay County of Kenya through vocational training and education programs for vulnerable women and children ages 12-25. Specific objectives are as follows:
- Provide technical skills to improve the quality of education
- Create employment opportunities to alleviate poverty
- Promote educational training on how to run small-scale businesses
- Provide reliable source of income for vulnerable youth and women
- Boost economic growth among the target population
ACHIEVEMENTS
At the beginning of 2021, our training program had also seen an upsurge and increase by continuing to attract inspired unskilled young men and women who are thirsty to gain vocational skills training. Because of limited space for training and inadequate tools, we just enrolled some but others were asked to continue waiting, were put on hold, and retained on our waiting list for future consideration.
But that is no longer going to be so now or in the future following the financial support received in May, 2021 from Kitchen Table Charities Trust for the purchase of modern machines to equip the Carpentry Workshop.
Soon after getting the funds, we embarked on the identification and procurement of the modern machines for the Carpentry Workshop. A total of 15 new modern Carpentry machines were earmarked for purchase, all of them have since been bought, delivered at the workshop, and assembled for immediate use.
The Carpentry Workshop currently has quantitative and qualitative training resources it had intended for practical–oriented skills training. It has become possible for the trainees to make assignments but also deliver wood products that can be sold to generate income for the workshop to fund some small course materials that may be required from time to time. Equally the expanded capacity of the workshop is able to absorb the additional number of training participants for now into the future.
Participants who will have completed practical skills training will be eligible for seeking employment in the local labour market, start their own business enterprises. Our organization is collaborating with the National Industrial Training Authority (NITA) to give such participants Certification equivalent to Government Trade Test 3 which is recognized in throughout the Republic of Kenya.
Oyugis integrated Development Organization is now able to engage the youth and unemployed persons in acquiring personal, professional, and social life skills that will benefit both themselves as well as the communities that they will provide their services to; offer employment opportunities to persons who have difficulty in finding job opportunities; youth and unemployed persons will engage in useful productive activities that improve their living standards and become responsible members of the society and at household levels; the youth beneficiaries will become role models to other members of the society who will emulate them in initiating income generation through self –employment; working and staying together by the beneficiaries of this project will enhance positive attitudes of appreciating each other and tolerance that will go a long way in promoting peacebuilding initiatives in the community.
We are continuing to recruit more local members into our organization. Community involvement has positive implications for the sustainability of the intervention. It will further ensure ownership of the project by the community, employ local knowledge and resources. The involvement of other institutional actors and government bodies will enhance the process of mobilization, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the activities of our organization.§
CHALLENGES
The single most and greatest of all is this global crisis of Corona Virus pandemic. This Covid -19 pandemic had disrupted our daily lives and resulted in fundamental consequences in every society. We, at Oyugis Integrated Development Organization will continue to keep the health measures taken by the government of Kenya through the Ministry of Health in mind to stop the spread of Covid -19.
THE FUTURE PLANS
The good news is that the government of Kenya lifted the dusk to dawn curfew in the whole Republic on October 20, 2021 during the Mashujaa day celebrations
Therefore, Oyugis Integrated Development Organization is planning to have a fully-fledged carpentry workshop for the production of furniture items for sale as an income generation project apart from the provision of vocational skills training to trainees. This will ensure the maximum usage of the pool of the newly acquired carpentry machines which were bought through the financial support of the Kitchen Table Charities Trust.
To realize it, we will have to continue to raise funds from other development partners in order to construct/hire a store that could be used as a showroom to display finished wood artifacts produced in the Carpentry Workshop during skills training sessions.
APPRECIATION
The entire Group members and Management Committee of Oyugis Integrated Development Organization is sincerely thankful to the Board of Kitchen Table Charities Trust for the financial support extended to us towards the equipment of our Carpentry Workshop with new modern machines and we are looking forward to a continued development working relationship.
