AIS Kenya measuring Impact
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>View discussions about this entry Country: Kenya
Organization: AIS KENYA
Sport: Soccer
Year the initative began (yyyy) 2007
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? AIS Kenya is bringing life skills teaching leadership training, and ethnic cooperation to Kenya through soccer from the grassroots to professional levels.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? The AIS Kenya model is innovative in that it utilizes slums’ characteristic diversity and large youth population as tools for combating the five biggest problems in Africa: HIV/AIDS, corruption, poverty, ethnic strife and religious-based violence. AIS Kenya brings youth from the slums and surrounding communities together through organized soccer tournaments, camps, clinics, assemblies and community service activities. This model takes the same factors that traditionally cause violence in the communities (a large, diverse, largely unemployed youth population) and puts them on a different playing field. By changing how and what game the youth play, AIS Kenya leads a new approach to ethnic cooperation and community development. While focused on promoting social cohesion, AIS Kenya takes advantage of the opportunity to also provide empowerment to youth through teaching them leadership and life skills. We utilize peer to peer education, outreach events, trainings and soccer tournaments which promote HIV/AIDS awareness.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? Many of the world’s most challenging disputes stem from local ethnic or religious conflict. In the slums of Nairobi, Kenya – East Africa’s largest slum - a violent history of ethnic violence is exacerbated by poverty, corruption, overpopulation, HIV/AIDS and unemployment. Youth aged 15 to 30 are the main combatants when different ethnic and religious groups clash in the slums and communities. AIS Kenya’s sport program curbs ethno-religious tension by investing in youth who might otherwise be causing these problems.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? The thousands of boys that play in AIS Kenya soccer tournaments, camps, and clinics must practice and compete on ethnically diverse teams. Tournaments are four to three months long and may include a lot of matches, allowing the opportunity for consistent training in life skills development and sport. Coaches and referees are older youth volunteers from AIS Kenya who serve as role models for the players. Coaches and referees enforce the AIS/ Fifa Fair Play Code, governing player behaviour on and off the field. AIS Kenya also creates opportunities for the youth to do outreach projects or be mentored.
How do you plan to grow your innovation? AIS Kenya already serves as a model for other community-based organizations in difficult, disenfranchised, and often dangerous places worldwide. For example, AIS Kenya Petra Boys Coach Adan (“Wario”) was brought up through the program. He is now a coach and also support to other staff and volunteers. He has trained his colleagues on mobilization skills, community involvement, operational structure, coaching, and tournament organization. AIS Kenya plans to continue its work by continually developing new techniques, examining our successes and failures in order to share knowledge, challenges, and achievements with others who might benefit. AIS Kenya also seeks to expand its presence by involving youth from other countries in awareness campaigns, fundraising, and soccer equipment drives. In addition, we seek to establish a sports complex and a professional team in Nairobi, Kenya to serve the entire continent.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. AIS Kenya promotes the empowerment of youth in troubled areas to raise up a generation of young, African leaders.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? Sources estimate slums and surrounding communities’ population to be between 700,000 and 1 million residents. In each case of collective violence and vices in slums, the combatants were predominately unemployed youth, aged 16 to 30. AIS Kenya offers a venue where youth in slums and surrounding communities develop critical team-building and leadership skills while providing mentorship. These things are necessary for developing a socially-minded and cohesive youth population, as well as lowering the incidence of violence. Because youth are responsible for programmatic decision-making, the organizational structure creates stakeholders and role models in the community and provides youth with an opportunity to excel at sport as an alternative to violence. AIS Kenya gives these unemployed youth hope, as well as opportunities to develop life skills for individual success and community betterment. Over the long-term, AIS-K supports emerging leaders who will one day become effective agents for change in Kenya, Africa, and indeed, the world.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? AIS Kenya is involved in closely mentoring over 30 youth. We work with them on a consistent basis and go through life skills programing with them. We also have five young men who have been introduced to and now work in the corporate world. In addition, we have two young men who have come out of your program and are playing professional football in the Czech Republic. We also involve around 100 youth each time we do a community service event.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? Demand within slums and our surrounding communities for AIS Kenya’s soccer and youth leadership programs is growing precipitously and often surpasses the human and material resources available at any given moment. In order to achieve the target impact, AIS Kenya desires to have it's own sports facilities. We have many willing staff that work very hard and are motivated by the passion and belief in the AIS Kenya sport and youth leadership model.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? AIS Kenya is very diversely funded. We receive many private donations as well as grants from foundations and corporations. We receive sponsorship from different corporations for tournaments. We do many initiative projects as well to receive funding. We also receive funding from the head AIS office in Africa. We are continuously trying to raise awareness of our program in order to expand our donor base.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization. 2007 Annual Budget for AIS Kenya Sport Program: $4,000 (Estimated)
2007 Total Annual Budget for AIS Kenya (all programs): $5,000 (Estimated) 2006 Annual Revenue for all AIS Kenya programs: $3,000 (Estimated) AIS Kenya Staff Full-Time: 3 (AIS Kenya Executive Director, AIS Kenya Football Director and AIS Kenya Interns coordinator/ Officer) Expatriate Staff: 2 Part-Time: 0 Volunteer: 30+ (coaches and referees) What is the potential demand for your innovation? The demand for AIS Kenya’s innovative model is both local and global. AIS Kenya has the potential to become the go-to sport program for nearly ten million young people in all of East Africa. We receive many requests from churches and organizations to aid them in their sports programming. This is still a baby work and already it's model is in high demand from other communities. As we see more and more results, the demands will only increase.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? Donor fatigue is perhaps the largest barrier to financial sustainability for AIS Kenya, although we are constantly searching for and implementing new ways to engage with our supporters. Also, because we are run by almost all volunteers and they work specifically with the youth, AIS Kenya simply lacks the person-hours to invest in development and marketing that larger non-profits enjoy. We believe that an endowment will improve financial sustainability and programmatic flexibility.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. The Kenya AIS program first began out of conversation between Justine Birichi and Tim Tucker when they met at the International Christian Center. Conversations were had about different passions and experiences in Justine's time studying and learning. Time had a background in sports ministry and leadership. As a result, they developed a model of sports ministry that was unique for Eastern Africa. A holistic sports model was created geared towards the giants of ethnic strife, corruption, poverty and HIV/AIDS. AIS Kenya has been supported and sustained through this connection and allows the program to continue to progress and improve.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. Justine Birichi,
Born and grew up in Kenya, while in Primary and High school playing soccer and being one of the good player and got a scholarship as an undergraduate at the Utalii College, Justine Birichi lived in Nairobi and played semi pro in KPL and loved to work with kids and the youth, following an internship in South Africa and the US AIS SMTC and studied youth involvement. Contact Information:
Justine Birichi
CEO AIS KENYA AIS KENYA (NPO) Discussions about this entry |
