SAYDS MEDIA
November 16, 2022
Delivering proposals and ideas to government offices in Kenya can be unnerving. Our fellows in Makadara worked tirelessly to break these walls. This report outlines their experience.
By Makadara Team
The team officially visited the County Secretary on April 22, 2022. The county secretary who was present at the moment welcomed us and, after perusing through the SIP document, advised us to go back and show the policy document to whom the document was addressed and the details of the organization submitting it
Following and applying this advice, the county secretary officially received the document and promised to submit it to the governing body.
At the county assembly, we were directed to the clerk. He warmly allowed us in where we got an opportunity to present the document to him. After reading the letter, he signed it, convinced by its content. He told us he would present when the assembly resumed. As a person in our age bracket, he wholeheartedly appreciated what we were doing.
The team made a second visit to the county assembly on April 26, 2022. The MCA, also a chief whip in the assembly of Nairobi, was not in at that very moment.
We were told that he rarely appears in the office. Additionally, we visited during an electoral period, which meant that he would have little bandwidth, devoting most of his time to campaigns on the ground. The fellow whip we found outside the office environment gave us his contact details and advised us to reach out to him whenever we wanted to. The team is yet to do that.
The team finally got a chance to deliver the third document to the Elimu Yetu Coalition at Capitol Hill who expressed a lot of interest to hear from us. The coalition fights for all children’s right to a better and more meaningful basic and higher education – largely reflecting our work’s purpose and mission which gave us an advantage. The lady we found, who is also the secretary, told us that the right person who could have handled us and heard from us was away in a meeting with the ministry of education.
She received the document warmly and signed it. She then gave us their contact details and advised us to send a short letter through their email requesting an appointment with the Director of the coalition.
In most of the offices attended, the response was cordial and they welcomed the fresh ideas from youth who are eager to help shape their communities. The secretaries provided a way of following up with their bosses.
A challenge was finding time to discuss SIP documents in-depth with XXX before physically handing them to the decision makers directly. The teams are supposed to conduct monitoring activities to capture the detailed responses to the SIP ideas.
This experience showed the ability of youth to think around complex ideas and the need to involve them in policy design and development. They documented a structured thinking towards solutions development which was designed to influence attitude of leader towards youth.
The team is working towards influencing future leaders to use complexity thinking when allocating resources and designing solution for complex social problems facing their subjects.
You will be placed in the appropriate team or project depending on your skills and experience. Please reach out if you can assist us in any of the following fields: