Selection Kenya
Swahilipot Hub Foundation
Swahilipot Hub Foundation is a community-based organization in Mombasa, working with a consortium of partners such as the Youth Hub Networks, Global Development Incubator, Wowzi, the African Digital Media Institute, and Creative Working Group. We are committed to upskilling and employing youth with the project Creative Opportunities Mombasa. This project provides a unique and valuable opportunity for young people to develop skills and gain experience in several creative industries.
The Problem
In Kenya, youth unemployment and underemployment is a problem of our times. There is an estimated 35% of youth underemployed or unemployed between the ages of 18-35. The region of Mombasa is disproportionally hit by unemployment compared to the national average, with a rate of 44%. If you add the amount of people that are in informal unemployment, thus without security and decent work conditions, that rate adds up to 66%.
Additionally, Kenyan women, particularly young women, experience higher rates of unemployment and underemployment in comparison to men. Between the ages of 15 and 25, the female unemployment rate is almost 50%, 20% higher than the male rate in the same age category. The reason for this, is that young Kenyan women have constrained access to the (formal) labour market because of social and cultural norms related to childcare and housework.
One of the reasons for high unemployment rates in Kenya is the fact that there is a lack of opportunities for youth to build the skills that are required or meaningful for the careers that are offered while simultaneously there are very limited opportunities for youth to monetize creative outputs.
The Solution
The creative industries are considered to be high potential employers for youth in Kenya, which is why, with our project Creative Opportunities Mombasa our goal is to empower the creative community in Mombasa and to make youth reach their full potential.
Our project will offer hands-on training, placement and mentorship in areas such as film and digital media which are in high demands in todays labour market. Additionally, the project will focus on entrepreneurships and self-employment to empower young people to become self-sufficient. Finally, our project will design a curriculum and training for young Kenyans, will create a content aggregation and distribution platform, will organise a work group to identify policies that are needed to improve long term employment for youth and to identify investment opportunities, and it will build and equip the media centre.
Our consortium’s goal with this project is to support at least 1200 (60% women) for marginalized youth without jobs between the ages of 18-35, within the creative economy in the next two years.
Our long term vision with the help of CFYE is to support and create 10.000 employment opportunities for youth and women in the creative economy in the following five years.
Additionality
With the support of CFYE our project will be able to achieve its goals at a higher rate than it otherwise would have been able to. With this support we expect to expand and create two to three times more jobs to be created. Also, we expect the results in increased formalization and quality and it will help increase the skilling supply and demand.
The support of CFYE will accelerate our project with an expectation of two to three times more jobs to be created.