Add Your Heading Text Here

My name is Patrick Mary. As an agent of change, I want to see a world with improved systems. I want to take part in inventing new approaches to create solutions with desirable outcomes. With the skills I have acquired, I will sharpen my focus on training, coaching, mentoring, and facilitating youth development programs.

I graduated from JKUAT University with a Bachelor of Commerce in Human  Resource and Management. I am a youth leader and mentor. Currently, I am working with Fikisha Organization, where I mentor kids, engage the community in awareness activism, and ensure the children living in the streets have the same access to services,  resources, care, and opportunities that other children have.

 I dream of seeing young leaders contributing positively to the development of their country and taking the lead in making Africa a better world. I envision working with more vulnerable youth, such as disabled and marginalized kids, in leadership development.

Nairobi has around 60,000 street kids. Dire poverty forces many children to leave their families and stay on the street. I focus on training, coaching,  mentoring, and facilitating youth development programs for street kids.

We have twenty street kids in our program. I have taught them leadership, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, problem-solving, community development, and behaviour and attitude change through this.

I aim to engage more street kids between the ages of 10 and 21 and have more disabled youth in my peer connection program. This will create more space for inclusivity and diversity opportunities in my program and have a disabled youth leader acting as a mentor to another person with similar challenges focusing on living independently, recovering from a traumatic event, and obtaining employment.

Before joining SAYDS, I didn’t know about complex analysis and system  thinking. Complex problems are tough and one needs to deal with the root cause of the problem.

Understanding complex analysis of problems and the realities of the evolutionary, dynamic, and complex nature of organizations, businesses and economies is necessary to develop an organization capable of producing and sustaining a competitive advantage.

Before joining SAYDS, I didn’t understand complex problems and used an extremely narrow approach to solutions. SAYDS fellowship has allowed me to be better assured that my programs deliver the suitable activities for the desired outcomes and have a system thinking view to problems.

SAYDS has made me understand how problems are interlinked to other social  issues. For instance, when solving climate change, one needs to understand how migration, sanitation, drainage, people, and business are interlinked.

In my day-to-day life, I apply the tactics taught at SAYDS to improve my peer educator and youth leadership skills. As a consequence, I lead well-run meetings, plan agendas, create the appropriate group environment, encourage participation, and hence achieve set objectives.

In my work, I aim to empower street kids and neighborhoods in Kawangware. My objective is to better cities by reaching young people and equipping them as leaders. These young leaders transform their communities by working as teams to see a change in their neighborhoods.

In the future, youth should be at the table implementing policy and be allowed to renew, refresh and maintain the current status of society. This is due to the fact that, in Kenya, youth are not allowed to lead or become leaders, affecting how they approach or participate in social development in their community.

I plan to teach others how to use system thinking and complex analysis by being a facilitator, building capacity, and conducting workshops.