Equipped
to Respond
Annual Report 2020
Building Organizational Sustainability in Kenya
2020 was a busy year for Uasin Gishu County Youth Bunge Forum (UGCYB), a community-based organization in Kenya’s Uasin Gishu County.
Youth bunges, meaning “parliament” in Swahili, serve as a way for youth to address issues like unemployment. UGCYB works to support youth employment opportunities and community engagement, and, this past year, it has been actively involved in helping mitigate the spread and effects of COVID-19 in their county.
Elijah Koech, the president of UGCYB, shared, “We have visited more than 50 villages around the county, raising awareness on COVID-19, debunking myths, and setting up handwashing stations.”
To meet community needs during the pandemic, the UGCYB team called upon skills developed through the Yetu Initiative’s bootcamp in 2019.
The Yetu Initiative, a partnership between AKF and USAID, has hosted semi-annual bootcamps to build the capacity of local organizations to raise Kenyan resources for Kenyan needs. Through these bootcamps, the Yetu Initiative offers practical training, coaching, mentoring, and peer learning to help participating organizations successfully launch local fundraising campaigns.
With their new fundraising strategy, UGCYB mobilized over $5,000 US (500,000 Kenyan shillings). It also relied on their partnership strategy to help meet needs during the pandemic.
According to Elijah, the bootcamp helped UGCYB rethink and refocus its energy on the long-term sustainability of the organization.
“During the Yetu bootcamp, two key lessons for us were the importance of developing a local resource mobilization strategy and undertaking donor mapping,” he said.
During the bootcamp, the team went back to the drawing board and crafted a fundraising strategy targeting high-net-worth individuals in the county and establishing partnerships with corporations and the county government.
With its new fundraising strategy, UGCYB mobilized over $5,000 US (500,000 Kenyan shillings). It also relied on its partnership strategy to help meet needs during the pandemic.
According to Elijah, the bootcamp helped UGCYB rethink and refocus their energy on the long-term sustainability of the organization.
“During the Yetu bootcamp, two key lessons for us were the importance of developing a local resource mobilization strategy and undertaking donor mapping,” he said.
During the bootcamp, the team went back to the drawing board and crafted a fundraising strategy targeting high-net-worth individuals in the county and establishing partnerships with corporations and the county government.
With their new fundraising strategy, UGCYB mobilized over $5,000 US (500,000 Kenyan shillings). They also relied on their partnership strategy to help meet needs during the pandemic.
Using skills learned through the Yetu Initiative bootcamp, Uasin Gishu County Youth Bunge Forum established partnerships with the private and public sectors, which helped it distribute more than 20,000 masks to vulnerable community members.
“We currently have partnered with several stakeholders, including the county government, Rivatex [a textile company in Kenya co-owned by the government and a private firm], and political leadership in the distribution of masks to vulnerable members of the community,” Elijah said.
With these partnerships, UGCYB distributed more than 20,000 masks in low-income areas of their county, including informal settlements.
After the bootcamp, UGCYB did a second fundraising campaign in partnership with Uasin Gishu Civil Society Organization Networks to supplement government efforts to provide sanitary pads to girls. This campaign raised over $6,000 US (600,000 Kenyan shillings) to give sanitary pads to more than 500 girls and host talks on menstrual health.
Participating in the Yetu Initiative’s bootcamp equipped UGCYB to meet the needs of Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, the Yetu Initiative’s bootcamps went virtual, reaching a wider audience across several Kenyan counties. Thirty-two civil society organizations began the four-month training in September 2020 to strengthen their organizational sustainability. Many of the organizations enhanced their capacity to fundraise so that they could respond to the needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Yetu Initiative’s Project Director, Irene Gathinji, underscored the Initiative’s dedication to supporting Kenyan organizations at the opening webinar, saying, “At Yetu, we have committed to walk this journey with you.”
“At Yetu, we have committed to walk this journey with you.”
