The American based organization Youth Action International (YAI) has announced that it is working in partnership with Mother Goose Time (MGT) and the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI) to launch an early childhood education program in Liberia. The program will be the only one of its kind in Liberia and is expected to make a significant impact on Liberia’s education system. Continue reading
• 100,000 West African youth benefit from YAI’s youth empowerment programs.
• 4,000 children receive education supplies.
• 700 youth in the U.S. are actively engaged through YAI member chapters.
• YAI speaking tours reach 40,000 youth each year, world-wide.
• 500 former child soldiers benefit from informal counseling, skills training, micro-credit loans, and other support services.
• 400 single mothers gain work skills, receive micro-loans and claim a place of influence in their communities.
• 300 children heal from illness through medical care and receive the opportunity to grow to their full potential.
• 200 young women learn via lifetime scholarships and experience the strength of education.
• 150 Ugandan families receive agricultural training and seeds to become self sustainable.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you found an opportunity in which giving and receiving happened naturally at the same time? There is no limit to the positive impact we can make when we unite our brilliance for the greater good.Imagine, how joining forces with Brilliant minded, Heart centered, Action oriented people would impact your personal dream and your contribution to the world.
Kimmie Weeks is now a distinguished faculty of an amazing group called Humanity Unites Brilliance (HUB). Youth Action International is a key action partner with HUB.
Join us in providing food, water, education and micro-loans to thousands… Continue reading
YAI is set to graduate the first batch of students from Mengo Youth Development Link Vocational Training Center. It ran for a year beginning February 2008 and was officially launched by the former Minister of Youth and Children, Honorable James Kinobe. The students were trained in wood curving, tailoring, tie & Dye, paper beads making and they also received counseling services. This pilot project started with 80 students and will be graduating 62 students.
Youth Action International has successfully implemented the Family Empowerment Initiative to support children made vulnerable by AIDS, poverty and conflict in Rakai District. In the first phase of this program, YAI provided 150 families with seeds and tools for subsistence farming. We trained farmers on various topics including post-harvest handling, good environmental practices, and seeds preservation. This has helped with food security for the families and enables them to provide basic necessities for the children.
Informer Newspaper, 15 April: The Country Representative of Youth Action International (YAI) Martina Marshall has returned from a weeklong capacity-building workshop held in Dakar, Senegal, for civil society organizations. The workshop brought together a number of participants from all over West Africa.
150 Women have graduatted from YAI’s Center for Women Empowerment in Sierra Leone. The women mainly drawn from the slum community of Kroobay were awarded certificates for completing courses in Tailoring, Hairdressing, Jewelry Making, Computer, photography and Adult Literacy.
The graduation ceremony took place on 30th May 2009. Women who had gone through the program graduated with new skills and capital to start up a businesses. During the course of the program, students and instructors were evaluated on a monthly basis. The monthly evaluation provides an opportunity to review successes and failures in completing tasks and meeting desired goals, as well as those of the instructors.
Acclaimed Liberian activist Kimmie Weeks has received a number of major awards at home and abroad. These include honors bestowed upon him by the National Excellence Award, and Oracle Group.
On April 17th, Kimmie Weeks received the Wangari Mathai Award for Global Citizenship. The award was presented to Weeks in the Atrium Ballroom of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington DC. The program, which coincided with the Launch of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s book was attended by more than 800 people included HE President Sirleaf, The Liberian Ambassador to the United States Nathaniel Barnes as well as Liberian Ministers Samuel Kofi Woods, Lawrence Bropleh. Continue reading
Youth Action International has launched its first rural office in Kono district, eastern Sierra Leone. The agriculture project is currently engaging 500 young people in rice and vegetable production. It is estimated that through 500 youth farmers and 20 youth groups, about 2,850 people in 22 marginalized villages in the districts of Kono will directly benefit from the project activities. Continue reading
The Greener Diamond has released a new line of t-shirts to raise awareness and support YAI’s work. The “ENOUGH!” campaign t-shirts have been worn and is being promoted by celebrities including Johnny Littlefield on the show:Extreme Makeover, Home Edition.
The Greener Diamond will donate 100% of the proceeds from the ENOUGH t-shirt sales to Kimmie Week’s foundation Youth Action International for a project that will regenerate and reclaim an old toxic diamond mine in the Konor region of Sierra Leon. Former child soldiers will farm the land into new rice fields that will, not only serve as a source of food for the surrounding communities, but create a sustainable source of income for them as well.
Every year, Kimmie Weeks embarks on a nationwide speaking tour to motivate young people to become pioneers of change. To date, thousands of students have heard his message and many of them have gone on to start their own humanitarian organizations or have joined other change-making programs.
Contact Natsumi Ajiki: natsumi @ peaceforkids.org
“What have I gotten myself into?”
This is a question that has come up many times on my journey to Africa.
I suppose to clarify, and so as not to sound like a cynic, I should explain a little bit about myself. I’ve been a photographer for two and a half years now. When I first picked up a camera the only thought that went through my head was “Awesome, now I have a big chunk of metal, plastic and glass that will allow me to take clearer photos and I’ll soon be rich and famous as a result of having this camera!”
This was not the case as I am neither rich, nor famous (side from my own delusions of grandeur.) Anyways all of that is beside the point. If someone had told me the day that I picked up that camera that it would eventually lead me to post war West Africa, I would have laughed in their faces. Not because traveling to West Africa is a crazy idea, but simply because I did not see myself ever getting past the stage of “hobbyist” photography.
And yet, here I sit, in Sierra Leone, thousands of miles from home (6168 miles approximately) volunteering as the photographer for Youth Action International.
Now in regards to Africa, particularly Sierra Leone and Liberia, I don’t think that anything could have really prepared me for what I would experience here. This is including Kimmie’s ‘worst case scenario’ description of Liberia.
I wish I had been more diligent about documenting my experiences and reactions in Liberia, but I seemed to always put off the act of writing. I always told myself I was too tired or busy, but the truth is that I had a very difficult time reflecting on the barrage of experiences at the time. Throughout my time in Africa, I realized that I did not once shed a tear. It was only once I was on the plane from Accra to New York, on my way back to my privileged and comfortable life, that I was able to absorb the memories and the pictures that I was taking with me. As I looked through the pictures I had taken on my camera, I cried for a half an hour straight. I cried thinking about the hopeful faces on the small children at Temas Orphanage that I was leaving. I cried for young people of Grand Bassa County who do not have the opportunity to go to school. I cried because I realized that my life would be changed forever and I cried because I felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
A cross-section of observers, traditional and religious leaders, local and international media stormed Ri-Kwangba last week to witness the historical moment were Joseph Kony, the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) leader was supposed to sign the final peace agreement. The rest of the world held its breath to witness the day that northern Uganda would finally get to normalcy after 20 years of conflict between the Government of Uganda and the LRA rebels.
“Aren’t you nervous?” my dear friend carefully asked me when I told her that I’d be visiting Uganda. That’s how my parents reacted at first. I told myself it is not because Uganda is part of Africa that they are worried for my travel. Traveling to new places is always uncertain to some extent. However, I couldn’t deny that part of me was more worried than usual. What would I see? How would I feel? What should I expect? Am I mature enough? Above all, the question was ‘why would I want to go visit Africa’? I cannot tell Uganda story leaving out the influence of Kimmie and Youth Action International. I actually met Kimmie at Northfield Mount Hermon High School where Kimmie graduated from.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an Acholi-based opposition group led by Joseph Kony has been fighting first against president Museveni’s government, and currently against other Acholi peoples. The Acholi are an ethnic group who live in Northern Uganda. Though Kony, leader of the LRA reportedly believes he has been chosen by God to overthrow president Museveni and establish a government based on the Ten Commandments, and a purified Acholi race, the LRA has yet to explain its goals or put forth any sort of political agenda.
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I wasn’t promised an African sunset. When Kimmie Weeks invited me on a humanitarian mission through post-conflict countries, what came to mind were the stunning landscape pictures my friends had brought back from the ranch in Kenya. It was how I had envisioned this beautiful continent. Streaks of red and orange, firing up the night sky of deep blue and purple: a kaleidoscope of color. Instead, I found another kind of sunset. I found the African people wasting away, dying brutal, horrific deaths at the hands of war, disease, and poverty. I found the sun setting on their lives. Not fading into the night with brilliant lights, but being shredded into a nonexistence wracked with pain and suffering. Continue reading
I traveled to Liberia and Sierra Leone with Kimmie Weeks during the summer of 2006 to assist him and carry out research for YAI. I am originally from Tanzania and was excited to visit west Africa. I was confident I would adjust to Sierra Leone pretty quickly, because hey, it was still Africa wasn’t it? And I’m half African. Continue reading
