Jesuit Hakimani Centre(JHC)

Hakimani was invited by SOS Childrens Villages International to represent both Hakimani and LCMC in a regional meeting and engagement between SOS Childrens Villages (of Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, Eswatini, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe), Care leavers’ network representatives, Association of Care Leavers Network in Africa (ACNA), and other partner civil society groups. There were 35 participants at Four Points at Bandarini, Dar Es Salaam.

The regional meeting was held to discuss and achieve the following four objectives:

• Foster capacity building and knowledge exchange among Care Leaver Network Leaders regarding the challenges and opportunities in the field of care leaving.
• Explore ways of transitioning young care leavers to independent living through acquisition of skills on ICT4D (ICT for Development).
• Facilitate a platform for Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) engaged in the care leaving agenda to share their insights and experiences.
• Facilitate a CSO engagement focused on positive parenting, coaching, mentoring, training, and internships, employability of youth and care leavers.
• Initiate a brainstorming session on policy analysis, prioritization of key strategic advocacy points relevant to care leavers after one of programming.

We reported and shared more on the last objective, which was of utmost importance to us – after 6 months of project implementation on human rights and human agency as important enablers for the achievement of the main outcomes of the project.  Since mid-2023, SOS Children’s Villages Kenya has been partnering with Jesuit Hakimani Centre & LCMC in order to achieve the following three outcomes: that policy makers make laws that recognize and support young care leavers; that national social protection agenda takes into consideration the needs of young care leavers and that the young care leavers are so empowered as to become active citizens that demand their right to social protection, assistance and contribute meaningfully in public participation fora. This project will continue until the end of 2024.

We can report that Hakimani & LCMC successfully and significantly contributed to the passage of the Youth Development Policy 2024 for the Uasin Gishu County Government through a sustained digital advocacy campaign. We are still waiting for the passage of Mombasa County Youth Development Policy, after we petitioned the county government on 26 November 2023. The inclusion of young care leavers in the policy is a great achievement.