Mentorship Programme
The main goal of the mentorship programme is to provide a solution to some of the challenges facing the education sector in Kenya. According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), these challenges include poor-quality teaching and large class sizes, unequal distribution of resources; very high pupil-to-teacher ratio in some counties. In 2020, due to COVID 19, school closures interrupted learning for over 17 million children, who missed more than six months of formal education. They also faced increased risks of violence, child labour and to their mental well-being. SEP has tailor made the Mentorship Programme to address these challenges by enabling students from poor background to have access to free extra tuition during school holidays. SEP organizes for these tuitions during April, August and December holidays each year. The August 2023 event attracted 460 students from different schools in and outside Siaya County.
One of the beneficiaries of the programme Violet Atieno, a student at Nyasanda Community School gave SEP the following feedback: “The best thing about the mentorship programme is that they help us learn lessons to be covered in the next school session so that when you return to school the next semester it is like a revision. That makes it is easy for us students to catch up”. SEP acknowledges the benefits of developing soft skills which are the personal attributes that allow one to work, interact, and communicate with others effectively. Soft skills have been acknowledged universally to be beneficial. For instance, the European Social Fund, funded by the European Union, offers training on soft skills to both students and adult learners. This practice is still lacking in Kenya and the mentorship programme works to fill this gap. The skills which SEP plans to introduce in its mentorship programme include critical thinking, problem solving, public speaking, leadership, communication as well as digital and financial literacy.
SEP mentorship program equally values the development in the overall health and wellbeing including physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health of the target beneficiaries. As noted by UNICEF, when young people are out of school they experience an increased risk of violence, child labour and a risk to their mental well-being. The mentorship programme works to mitigate these challenges by providing meaningful engagements with students during school holidays by offering guidance and counselling to help deal with challenges as well as other youth friendly support systems. Ahinda Artaxerxes, is a form four student at Nyasanda Community High School and has been participating in SEP Mentorship activities for the last four years. He attested to the fact that participation in the programme prevents them from engaging in harmful activities. He said the following: I would like to thank SEP for organizing the mentorship programme. This programme has eliminated us from idleness back at home. During the holiday, you will find most young people spending time doing wrong activities. Participation in the programme prevents us from engaging in wrong activities.”
We Find & Fund
We are in search of opportunities to help as many youth as possible. We approach and fund all those who are in need.
We Provide Care
Today’s youth need a helpful hand and right guidance at every stage. Here’s where we take care of them like our own.
We Educate
We run small-scale schools for the underprivileged children and youth of daily wage workers for a better future.
We Employ
We run organizations where we employ youngsters so they can live their dreams for themselves and their families.
