UZIMA Foundation is committed to youth empowerment for the improvement of the quality of the lives of the youth themselves, their families and communities.

This empowerment is carried out through mobilizing youth to bring them together to share a cup of tea and establish connectedness with other youth as a means of overcoming their isolation and an existence under a blanket of helplessness and hopelessness. Youth in one area join together to form an UZIMA youth group through which most activities take place.

UZIMA then holds discussion forums for these youth to identity the priority concerns in their lives that they think can be addressed in order to positively improve the quality of their lives as well as those of their families and communities.

Since 1995 when UZIMA Foundation was registered in Kenya various programmes have emerged out of this interaction with the youth. The first programme was Safe and Clean fun otherwise known as Edutainment. This programme lends itself to initiating activities that require no funding because the youth can start off with their own resources, such as singing, poetry, dancing, drama. It then moves into sports such as football, volleyball which require some resources for purchases such as the equipment for sports/ games.

The full programme areas that have emerged are:

  • Mobilization of youth and formation of youth groups
  • Promotion of economic empowerment
  • Promotion of edutainment/clean and safe fun
  • Promotion of peace and justice
  • Promotion of gender equity
  • Engagement in control of HIV/AIDS and Promotion of reproductive health among youth
  • Engagement in control of Malaria
  • Engagement in control of substance abuse
  • Promotion of environmental management
  • Promotion of partnerships
  • Scholarship and leadership development

By the first ten years there were 20,000 youth in UZIMA youth groups. UZIMA youth have been thrilled at how much success they have generated through these programmes. These successes include:

  • Reduction of hopelessness
  • Improved Reproductive and Sexual Health
  • Involvement in Economic Empowerment
  • Promoted Gender Equity among Youth
  • Involvement in promoting Peace, Reconciliation, and Promotion of Good Governance
  • Engage in Clean and Safe fun
  • Successes on the International Scene particularly in conflict resolution and peace promotion
  • Successes in Conservation of Environment
  • Fora for Sharing Best Practices
  • Offshoots from UZIMA Activities through partnerships with other groups

These areas of success have been developed into the programme components in the Strategic Plan 2006-2010.

Furthermore, for the period of the 2006-2010 Strategic Plan expansion took place to include the areas of malaria, drug abuse, scholarship and leadership development.

We invite partners to work with us to help the youth make positive differences in their own lives and those of their families and their communities.

We also invite you to partner with us in developing training and rehabilitation centre as most of our empowerment work revolves around training.

This will help us to access training facilities easily, without having to wait for low cost facilities, save on rent, and would be a income generating source as we would hire it out to others to use.

Read the Background to the UZIMA Foundation Strategic Plan 2006-2010 here.