Mombasa youth are set to benefit from mentors through a structured mentorship program dubbed ‘Case Management’.
The mentorship program that was launched on Wednesday at the SwahiliPot hub during the fourth edition of Pwani Innovation Week targets to mentor 20,000 young people from Mombasa, Kwale, and Kilifi in the next three years.
Speaking during the launch of the mentorship program, SwahiliPot hub Founder Mahmoud Noor said the program was a result of a survey that was carried out four years ago.
“We asked young people to identify what are some of the key things they want and mentorship came in as number one, so that is why we are launching it,” said Noor.
Noor said the hub has partnered with other centers hosting young people at the grassroots levels within the three counties to push the program.
“We will have 150 mentors that we have started with, we are actually doing an induction and training them,” said the SwahiliPot hub founder.
Also at the launch was Mombasa County Executive Committee Member for Youth, Gender, Sports, and Social Services Kenneth Ambani.
Ambani said the launch of the program was in line with the County government’s mentorship programs for the youth.
“The County government of Mombasa is very passionate about mentorship and growing the youth, we are helping them to identify their strengths, talents and then we intentionally move them to an area where they are able to be taught how to use this talent to grow and be somebody in the society,” said CEC Ambani.
He also advised young people seeking mentors to not go into the program with expectations but to be ready to learn from their mentors.
“The mentorship program is bringing together both the community and youth groups in Mombasa County. The mentors have been chosen from existing community groups, they will be attached with youth centers across Mombasa County and they will be ensuring they link the youth to different opportunities and also offer them counseling programs,” said Pwani Youth Network CEO Alfred Sigo during the launch.
“They will also offer guidance to these youth so that we can have a better Mombasa where youth are keeping off drugs and creating different livelihoods for themselves,” he added.
