Name of GRIC Partner Organization: Footprints for Change
Name of Interviewee: Carine Umutoniwase
Position/Role in the organization: Team Leader and Director
Date (10/01/2022)
- In a few sentences tell us about your organization (why it was formed, and what you do) and how you got into a partnership with GRIC.
Footprints for Change (F4C) is a youth-led and youth serving organization established and formally registered in 2014 as a community-based organization in Kenya. We are a non-profit change making organization comprised of youth seeking to advance the welfare of current and future African societies. The organization was formed to equip and enlighten young people and children on their role in change making and peace building in underserved communities. F4C exist to provide mentorship platforms and programs for youth to awaken their potential and strengthen their capacity for peace building and sustainable development. Children and youth are mentored on leadership, social transformation and peace building to ensure that they are active participants in the development and transformation of the communities.
One of the mentors of Footprints for Change introduced GRIC to the organization; GRIC was looking for partners to work on education matters Nairobi. F4C was vetted as one of the partner organizations in Mathare constituency.
- What has the journey of partnering with GRIC been? (Highlighting technical and resource mobilization support offered and overall organizational development attained) Maximum 100 words.
GRIC has greatly supported and helped improve F4C work in Mathare. Through capacity strengthening sessions and assessment, F4C was able to identify gaps in programming and implementation and further employed the lessons learnt to improve organization outputs and outcomes. For examples through the Child Protection training, F4C was to learn more about child abuse and we were able to cascade the information to teachers and youth leaders on how to identify and address child protection issues. We were also able to learn more on resource mobilization which has helped us diversity our funding base to include local resources.
- What are the key highlights in your organization’s partnership journey with GRIC? (In your own words, no word limit, be creative, bold, and real)
Growth and continuous learning has been the highlight of our partnership journey with GRIC. Through each interaction and opportunity offered by GRIC, we have seen not just the program staff but also youth leaders in the community grow. Further, through the county clusters we have been able to work with other partners and mobilize more resources through their networks. In addition, before starting to work with GRIC, F4C’s Kiota program was not well established in addressing education/academic outcomes in our partner schools. Our journey with GRIC has seen us work with local education stakeholders and also add value to academic outcomes of our partner schools.
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