CorpsAfrica/Kenya has launched a socio-economic initiative in a bid to foster a volunteerism culture in order to accelerate development and improve the quality of lives among rural communities.
The organization flagged off the first Volunteer cohort to an initial five counties including Makueni, Machakos, Kitui, Kajiado, and Narok to facilitate the initiative.
Using Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), the Volunteers will seek to address emerging challenges and complex local needs in business development, education, health, urban planning and infrastructure, agriculture, and the environment among others, through Community-Led Development.
The Organization has so far impacted communities in Rwanda, Malawi, Senegal, and Morocco, having done over 800 community projects with more than 400 volunteers, with Kenya and Ghana offices being the newest. This will be Kenya’s Pioneering Cohort of Volunteers.
CorpsAfrica/Kenya Pioneering Volunteers will be sent to various parts of the country within the five participating counties to live with the rural communities for one year, as catalysts for change and empowering the communities.
CorpsAfrica is a non-profit organization founded in 2011 that offers a transformative experience to emerging leaders in Africa. It gives them a chance to be a part of the solution for their own countries, mobilizing them to combat poverty and empower communities. CorpsAfrica addresses critical professional and personal growth needs for youth across Africa by teaching them Servant Leadership.
The organization recruits young graduates between 21 to 30 years, trains them and then has them move to under-resourced rural communities within their own countries for one year.
The Volunteers are taken through five weeks of Pre-Service Training built around experiential learning to empower and equip them with the skills and mindsets that they will need to be successful at their sites.
The Volunteers integrate into the communities they operate in and facilitate community meetings to identify and address changing and complex local needs in education, health, small business development, urban planning and infrastructure, agriculture, the environment, and more.
“This is the first cohort of Volunteers, and we look forward to having many more in the future. We believe that they will integrate into their communities, and by the time one-year elapses, the positive impact will be visible and measurable, on both the Volunteer and the communities at large,” said Dr. Patricia Kingori-Mugendi, the Founding Country Director of CorpsAfrica/Kenya.
CorpsAfrica’s vision is to be in all 54 African nations – with 250 Volunteers in each country each year – that’s 13,500 Volunteers a year across the continent by 2030.
