Slumcode was the partnering organization with TakingITGlobal. We identified youths between the age of 17-30 to participate in the workshop. A majority were from the Slumcode group while the rest were members of Kimanthi Information Centre. 10% of the participants had an idea about Adobe software while 90% had no idea on what it was about.

Around 60% had no clue on what global warming was all about. We... [ more ] Slumcode was the partnering organization with TakingITGlobal. We identified youths between the age of 17-30 to participate in the workshop. A majority were from the Slumcode group while the rest were members of Kimanthi Information Centre. 10% of the participants had an idea about Adobe software while 90% had no idea on what it was about.

Around 60% had no clue on what global warming was all about. We therefore centred more on the theme on climate and its impact on our Kenyan society and the environment. At the time the country had just experienced the devastating Budalang’i floods in Western province in the middle of the year so it was easier for participants to relate and understand the effects and underlying factors of climatic changes on the environment.
With regard to the theme on Culture and Identity, it was easy for participants to go through the topic in a nutshell as its part and parcel of who we actually are in the community and almost all of the youths still value their cultures so what we concentrated on is how do we accept and appreciate each others cultural values and the role that we play as young people in fostering cross-cultural relations in development.

The post –election violence in the country threatened the final process and completion of the workshop as most of the participants live in the Huruma area which was one of the worst hit by ethnic violence. The focus had to shift from the project to the security and well being of the participants which became a priority.

Participants learnt a lot from the workshops conducted. Through sharing with each other, they were able to expound their knowledge on both cultural and environmental issues locally and relate lessons learnt to global issues. Conclusively I can affirm that we all learnt a great lesson, being marginalized does not mean that one cannot learn, as long as there are materials and dissemination of knowledge willingly, anyone can learn new things.

Check out the Global Gallery Collections from the Youth Voices Kenya Project: Climate Change!