STREET KIDS ENGINEERING MEN AT WORK

STREET KIDS MEN AT WORK

NEW HOPE FOR STREET KIDS AND VULNERABLE ORPHANS

EXCECUTIVE SUMMARY

Street Kids Project (Kisumu Ecovillage Initiative) is a collaborative project implemented by BIG Inc in collaboration with VCAA. This project focuses on technical skills upgrading on automobile engineering, motor vehicle repairs and maintenance, car wash, panel beating and spraying, and automobile wiring. The main goal of this project is to empower youth and other vulnerable children to acquire technical skills that can make them create jobs, improve their income, save ,invest, become financially self reliant and support more vulnerable youth in future .

Series of research findings commissioned by BIG Microfinance and Enterprise Development program has revealed that youth and street kids lack basic education and parental care due to poverty and poor mentorship. The household income and food security is insufficient to warrant them quality basic needs and education. Some involve in child labor and commercial sex as income alternatives for their poor and hopeless families, the resultant effects have been drug abuse, thurgery, spread of HIV/AIDs and influx of street families. The vulnerable youth and street kids are energetic and can drive the country’s economy if imparted with the right skills and financial support through community banks.

Recent attempts by government to promote technical trainings through village polytechnics have left out many vulnerable youth, orphans and vulnerable children due to stringent entry requirement, discrimination and inability of the poor to pay exorbitant training fees. This project has been designed to support the poor of the poorest in both technical skills up-grading and enterprise development through community banking. Reserves created from the center revenues will used to encourage the center graduands to save and invest in their own garages so as to absorb more trainees.

This center will be promoted as Street Kids Project (Kisumu Ecovillage Initiative). It will be registered as a Community Based Training Center (CBO) with ministry of Culture and social services. Its operations will initially be coordinated under BIG Inc for the pilot phase. As the enterprise expands, there will be need for capacity building and strengthening its autonomous structures. This will be aimed at positioning the center in the industrial market place for better performance and returns.

Street Kids Project (Kisumu Ecovillage Initiative) will be known for quality training, wide range of attractive car repair and maintenance services. These services will range from automobile spares sales, automobile repair and maintainance, automobile wiring, panel beating and spraying,carwas ,welding and metals work.. The enterprise motto will be to listen to customers and provide value.The management will adopt combination of multiple pricing, competative position pricing and material cost pricing strategies in car repair, maintainance and associated services.

The primary customers will be corporate and individual car owners. Vulnerable and needy youth/Street kids market will form secondary target clientele according to their need and reliability. Each market category will be segmented/stratified into three categorories (Heavy commercial vehycles, Omni buses and Light commecial vehycles) to capture diversified and wider market niche.

The center services will be promoted through mass media and Internet both locally and internationally. In the local market, radios televisions and print media will be used, well done brochures and website will also be instrumental. The training and car maintenance services will be done in a center workshop located in Kisumu – Kondele offices for walk in customers looking for quality automobile repair services. As the enterprise expands, sales agents will be engaged on commission basis to penetrate new markets.

The center will be managed by a Center Manager supervising both technical and administrative staff Automobile service division will be division will be divided into six units i.e. automobile mechanics, automobile wiring, panel beating and spraying, welding and metal work, car wash unit and automobile spares shop. Each department will be headed by production assistant engaged on full time basis but remunerated based on output.

The required start-up capital to ensure cost-effective and consistent quality service provision in the center in a threshold scale for initial 1 year pilot project phase is Kshs 5 Million. This Kshs 1million for land and transfers, Kshs 1.5Million for garage shade, Kshs 250,000 for spares shop and 1.5 Million for theory training block Kshs 250,000 for vital equipment that may be lacking in the in the VCAA and partners donanted equipment list e.g. car wash machine among others equipment all these are project direct costs. The bulk of this fund will be sourced from VCAA as grant support while the remaining amount from enterprise revenues. It is envisaged that the center will be self-sustainable after three years of consistent business operations based on the projected service provisions and market levels and associated cash flow implications.

CURRENT PROBLEMS TO BE SORTED OUT AND SITUATION ANALYSIS

Problems associated with street kids and vulnerable orphans in Kenya;

Recent research and surveys conducted in the urban and Perry urban centers of Kisumu city has revealed that vulnerable youth and street kids lack basic education and parental care due to poverty and poor mentorship. The household income and food security is insufficient to warrant them quality basic needs and education. Some involve in child labor and commercial sex as income alternatives for their poor and hopeless families, the resultant effects have been drug abuse, thurgery, spread of HIV/AIDs and influx of street families. The vulnerable youth and street kids are energetic and can drive the country’s economy if imparted with the right skills and financial support through community banks.

Recent attempts by government to promote technical trainings through village polytechnics have left out many vulnerable youth, orphans and vulnerable children due to stringent entry requirement, discrimination and inability of the poor to pay exorbitant training fees. This project has been designed to support the poor of the poorest in both technical skills up-grading and enterprise development through community banking. Reserves created from the center revenues will used to encourage the center graduands to save and invest in their own garages so as to absorb more trainees.

Empowering the vulnerable youth technically makes economic and social sense since such kind of empowerment will not only engage the youth productively but also contribute to their improved incomes through created job opportunities. This will contribute to national Gross Domestic Production (GDP) and attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Enterprise/project feasibility

From the rapid assessment on training and automobile service demand for motor vehycles , many facts are available about the dyanamics technical trainings in the village youth polytechnic and in the jua kali sector.The traineed lack quality trainings due to lack of effective training facilities,they lack money to pay training fees, if they pass out of the training centers their experiences and skill are more theoritical than practical and this pose challenge in their absorption rate in the job market.

This project will make it technical skills acquisition in automobile engineering easier and affrodable to street kids and vulnerable youth.It will also reverse the adage of theory based taechnical traings to practical and enterprise oriented trainings for the target beneficiaries.The project will sustain itself through its enterprise wing of motorvehycle maintainance ,repair ,car wash and spares shop.Reserves will be created to support the graduands saving in the commuty bank to establish their own enterprise sites .This will facilitate the replication of technology aquired from the center for exteneded job creation and improved incomes.

Support from Cordaid

We are happy to announce Cordaid will support Streetkids Engineering in collaboration with VCAA Foundation! We are very grateful with this donation, as we can start with fase I, building the garage.

Cordaid combines more than 90 years’ experience and expertise in emergency aid and structural poverty eradication. They are one of the biggest international development organisations with a network of almost a thousand partner organisations in 36 countries in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Cordaid has a strong support base in the Dutch community This is proved not only by some 370,000 contributors who support Cordaid financially, but also by the commitment of volunteers who collect clothing, organise meetings in their towns or parishes and assist in organising festivals.

Money is still needed, but with their support we can move a step forward.