At YSD-Nairobi, we have decided to highlight our volunteers who are the champions in the community. Their contributions to making the communities better places is notable and worth sharing with the world. Beginning August 2020, we will be featuring one champion weekly as a way of shining our light on them. Mercy Thayo, our media correspondent, talked to our founding Chairperson Mr. Kenneth Ramah to answer a few questions regarding his passion and leadership experience. Have a look, enjoy!
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| Kenneth Ramah-YSD Nairobi Chapter Founding Chairperson |
Name: Kenneth Ramah
Area of interest: Resilient
Livelihoods, Social Inclusion and Gender, and Climate Action
1. Tell us more about
your background
I hold a
Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Planning and Management from Kenyatta
University. I have volunteered in the International Citizen Service project
with VSO and Balloon Ventures from August 2016 to December 2017, serving as a
volunteer and a Team Leader to empower marginalized communities in Kenya. I am
a Social Inclusion and Gender consultant as well as a Resilient Livelihoods
consultant for VSO, where I have supported programs in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Currently, I serve as an E-volunteer for VSO Kenya as well as the Chairperson
for Youth for Sustainable Development (YSD)-Nairobi Chapter.
2. What do you in
terms of your area of specialty which is social inclusion and gender
consultant.
I conduct training
and facilitations for VSO youth volunteers, staff, partners and various
stakeholders to raise awareness on how to challenge discrimination, tackle
oppression, and embrace diversity to ensure no one is left behind in the
development process.
3. How do you infuse
that with being a resilience and livelihoods programme consultant?
Building community
resilience requires active and meaningful involvement of ALL persons. This
includes the marginalized, minority groups, persons with disabilities, women,
etc. Social inclusion plays a critical role in ensuring that all community
persons are actively and continuously strengthening social, human, economic,
physical and environmental pillars of their lives build their resilience and
achieve sustainability.
4. What challenges
have you met so far and the response from people you have trained and sessions
you have facilitated on social inclusion workshops?
The main challenge
has always been changing people’s perceptions on what discrimination is and how
they can start embracing diversity as a positive thing. Many people live by
their cultural, religious and personal values, and these are not easy to change
over a 3-day workshop or training. I encourage them to make the small
deliberate steps as it is those steps that will help us achieve inclusion in
the long run.
5. Tell us more about
Youth for Sustainable Development (YSD) - Nairobi, as the chairperson, how
did it come into existence and what exactly does it entail?
YSD Nairobi is a
CBO in Nairobi that is part of a network of CBOs currently in 12 counties in
Kenya. It was founded to provide a platform for young people to be actively
engaged and meaningfully involved in development process of policy formulation,
volunteerism, leadership development. This is intended to improve the
socio-economic well-being of youth within Nairobi County.
6. How is the experience so far and do you feel
like the goals set are being met so far?
I love the
experience because I get to work alongside vibrant youth who wish to develop
themselves as they also contribute to the development of their communities.
There is great support from VSO and that has really helped in achieving most of
our goals as an organization. Indeed, there is more to be done and as
YSD-Nairobi team, we always look forward to our next activities.
7. What lies ahead for YSD- Nairobi,
what do we expect moving forward?
We have been
actively engaged in activities geared towards addressing the impacts of
covid-19 as this disease has adversely impacted people’s livelihoods. We intend
to engage in more sensitization around sensitive issues of building personal
and community resilience during the pandemic, issues of mental health,
Gender-Based Violence, and access to Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights
information and services among others. There will be less of physical
engagements with the communities we work with, but more of virtual activities
such as webinars and training on selected topics.
8. How has the pandemic affected your plans
as YSD team and what did you do to cope with that?
Initially, our
activities were designed to have more interaction with the youth that we engage
and the general community, but since the first case of covid-19 was reported in
the country, we have had to cancel several activities. We have resolved to
conducting most activities virtually, with a few happening physically while
still following government regulations of staying safe to ‘flatten the curve’.
We are happy that there is great support from our members and partner
organizations in ensuring that the activities are successful.
9. Let's talk about your volunteer journey so
far and how that has helped shaped your life?
I am always
excited to talk about my volunteer journey. When it all begun, I did not
imagine that taking part in various volunteering opportunities would define my
passion and career path. Right now I look back and acknowledge with
appreciation, the milestones that I have achieved as a result of volunteering
in my community and beyond.
10. What have you learnt about yourself during
this COVID-19 season and what will change about you post this
pandemic season?
I can definitely
be more patient than I thought. I expected the pandemic to be gone in 2-3
months, but we are already coming to the end of the 5th month, and
the number of new confirmed cases keep rising each day! Seems like this will
take a while and I have to accept that fact. After the pandemic, I can only say
that life will not be the same, and will adjust as we move along. Each new day
seems to bring with it new things.
11. Where do you see yourself in the next five
years?
Hopefully the
pandemic would be gone by then and we will be living the ‘New Normal’ life. I
hope to oversee initiatives through which I can continue to inspire and empower
young people to take action and develop their communities and beyond in order
to achieve sustainable development.
12. Anything else you would like to add?
Young people have
a lot of energy and the zeal to come up with innovative solutions to address
social issues in their communities. Some youth lack the platforms to help them
do this, and thus, I encourage youth to take part in initiatives that help them
improve their communities as they also gain and, or sharpen skills and
knowledge on areas significant to their personal development. It all pays in
the end!
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