All of YAI’s programs fall in one of three thematic areas: education, health, and economic empowerment. YAI works with community leaders, and community based groups to develop and implement programs to ensure that they are aligned with the most pressing needs of the community and that they can also be implemented in the most effective way.
EDUCATION
The focus of YAI’s work in education is geared towards building a strong foundation for children at an early age as well as ensuring that young people have access to opportunities for sustainable livelihood. Executive Director Kimmie Weeks notes, “I know from first-hand experience that the foundation a child receives prior to entering grade school plays a critical role in the success of that child through the rest of their academic journey.”
YAI’s education initiatives focuses on helping to support the provision of a solid foundation for pupils in their early development stages. The organization recognizes that by giving children a good foundation they are able to excel and are contribute more significant to the rebuilding of their country.
HEALTH
Reflecting on his near death experience being in a refugee camp and nearly dying from cholera, malaria and yellow jaundice, Kimmie Weeks set health as the second thematic area that YAI would focus on.
Over the years, YAI’s primary focus on health care has been focused on providing support to community clinics and hospital as well as sensitizing on some of the primary health care issues facing young people in post war African nations. Utilizing a peer to peer approach, the organization has organized and implements unique awareness programs on the prevention of teenage pregnancy, and HIV/AIDs and sexually transmitted diseases.
In 2019, we shifted our focus to providing clean drinking water for communities. This became a target for the organization when we realized that hundreds of wells built by international organizations to serve at risk populations had simply fallen into disrepair leaving entire communities without access to safe drinking water.
Working in partnership with Waves4Water, and Water Charity, we have already delivered clean drinking water to thousands of people in various communities.
ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
The mantra “teach a man to fish” has been the core guiding factor of YAI’s economic empowerment programs. This remains an area where the organization dedicates most of its resources to.
The provision of self-sustaining empowerment opportunities for young people in post war African nations has been something that YAI’s founder Kimmie Weeks has been passionate about. In one of his talks, Weeks notes that very often the young adult generation living in post war countries are easily written off because during the years of war, they lost the opportunity to keep up with regular classroom lessons and eventually too many years had passed for them to comfortably return to school. However, Weeks says these young people remain and untapped and extreme reservoir of talent that can still be tapped into. Says Weeks, “Yes, they’ve seen war and have lost years of their lives, but they are also filled with a deep burning survival flame that brought them through the worst nightmares. Give them a real opportunity to forge ahead and they will become the backbone of any postwar nation.”
YAI’s economic empowerment programs now focuses on creating high school models which incorporate vocational training