Youth Alive

Yesterday, I had a meeting with Youth Alive! Kenya to determine the potential for partnership with the organization. They have several different areas of focus including health, democracy and governance, environmental justice, and  human rights. It seems like a good opportunity for partnership but I am concerned about the level of impact that the youth can have in these types of programs. I am looking for something perhaps in education or working with other youth. This calls for a re-strategizing. I need to focus on what impact I want from the youth and see if that will give us any leads on finding a partnership or host site. It has all been a bit challenging, so hopefully we will be able to consolidate something soon.

Also from the meeting, I learned that there is a national organization in the U.S. with a similar mission among a similar target group based in NY called Global Kids. This organization has been around for some 30 years. They have a volunteer youth exchange which takes place in Kenya with Youth Alive! Kenya for two weeks in the summer. After this discussion during the meeting we decided to see about partnering with Global Kids to send our kids through this program.

The only challenge is that our youth being from Georgia are may not qualify for the program given the geographic distance. So, there is still hope for little TWO Hands. They have numerous programs in various countries which is essentially the goal for our organization. I have taken a look at the programs and I am very impressed. Given their experience, I will review their approach again with mine to see if there is anything of greater impact that we can add or include into our program for the benefit of the youth.

Visit them at Globalkids.org