Drama, Dance, Music, & Sport for Kisumu Youth

Looking at some of the photos from the Manyatta Youth Resource Centre (MYRC) in Kisumu, Kenya, primarily funded by Equip Manyatta, it is clear that many of the wide variety of activities and programs the MYRC provides not only build life skills and impart information but are also just plain joyful.    

Providing wholesome activities for the young people of the manyatta slums is one of the principal purposes of the MYRC.  Depending on their interests, young people can gain skills in visual and performing arts, computers, non-violent dispute resolution, healthy living, and football for all ages, girls and boys, young women and men. Young people who engage in MYRC programs are given a positive vision for who they can be and what their future might hold. 

The new year started with a focus on making sure our participants can stay in school. Through the caring intervention of General Manager Oballah, we ensured that promising Secondary School student Will, son of a struggling single mom, had tuition money he otherwise would not have had.  Supplies like shoes and books were also needed. Free Secondary School is not available in Kenya. There have been times we did not have the resources to cover these types of expenses but in this moment, fortunately they were available.  Will shows a lot of promise.  His teacher tells us he also helps others to understand their school work.  We wish him the best for this year in school. 

The MYRC continues to be a trusted partner when a donor wants to make sure the donation actually reaches its intended destination.  Recently a generous donation by Beatrice W of rice, a staple food in Kenya, was delivered by GM Oballah to recipient schools to feed the children.  

Donations of soccer kits by local businesses continue to be very helpful in ensuring our football teams turn out looking good. The most recent of these, for both boys and girls, was from Kiwasco, the Kisumu Water and Sanitation Company. 

Football continues to provide a lot of joy.  Manyatta United fields very strong teams.  At the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Chapa Dimba tournament in Kisumu in late 2022, both our girls Under-20 team and our boys U-20 team were the Champion teams for Nyanza North.  Early in 2023, our young men also won the National Division II Central Zone D Final in a very hard-fought game, coming out ahead with a 1-0 Final score. These players have come up through the years on MYRC training and have developed outstanding skills and teamwork.  

We look forward to a healthy and productive 2023 where the young people of Kisumu’s manyattas can participate in MYRC’s wide range of interesting activities, which will allow them to grow as human beings and joyfully flourish.  Thank you for your help through the years!  Your ongoing support is crucial.  We hope your generosity will bring you joy! 

As we move into the holiday season, we are grateful that the Manyatta Youth Resource Centre (MYRC) has managed to maintain our original programs of sports and arts while expanding the training and services we provide in spite of all the challenges in the last few years.  

While the MYRC continues to attract significant donations of equipment such as football jerseys and shoes, monetary donations are still very much needed. Principal funding for the MYRC comes from Equip Manyatta in the US. This money covers stipends for our coaches and skills trainers, our General Manager, who coordinates all the many aspects of the MYRC, team travel, workshop expenses, and rent on the office where so many activities are based.  Inflation touches not only those in the Americas and Europe, but folks trying to stay afloat in Kenya as well.  We need to be able to provide a reasonable level of support for the adults who are giving so much to the youth of their community so those leaders can afford to continue serving our young people. 

Consistent with one of our initial focuses, non-violent conflict resolution, the MYRC has created a series of workshops and team meetings focused on inter-personal relationships. In October, the MYRC hosted an event called “Understanding Consent.”  The discussion revolved around communication and how it can be challenging even among friends. The importance of openly discussing and respecting personal boundaries in a consensual and safe manner was stressed. Learning to talk about concerns and expectations are the key to helping friends feel comfortable in their relationships. This is one expression of the MYRC focus on “coaching boys into men.”

Another long-running success is our feeding program.  After weekend football practice, the MYRC provides a tasty and nutritious meal for both program participants and other community members. Our kids can count on that meal. It may not seem like a big thing, but every educator knows it is hard to concentrate on growing up and learning when your stomach is rumbling! It is also a time when our program participants can relax, chat, and bond with other kids and adults.   

We continue to make sure that girls and young women are a focus throughout our programming. A recent football shoe distribution presented shoes to girls enrolled in a local school. The MYRC has included girls and young women in the football program from Day One. This was fairly unusual when the MYRC first began. But following our example among others, many youth sports programs in Kisumu now also include girls and women.

Mentoring young women is an important MYRC function. On International Day of the Girl Child, we got together with our interns from the Kisumu National Polytechnic to discuss how to positively impact the lives of the less fortunate at the grassroots level.  The focus is on how to empower and offer support for girls who have been neglected and how to create a good environment in which they can mature. A formal program is not needed.  Each of us can reach out to mentor a girl child!

We invest time every month in strengthening our partnerships. Recently, we visited with our long-standing associates at the Blue Cross offices in Kibos to learn more about effective ways to reduce alcohol use among our youth.  We also strategized about street football as part of planning a jointly sponsored year-end event.  

In our last report we discussed the national election that was to be held on August 9. Kenya has a history of significant post-election violence that has rocked the country on several occasions, one of the reasons the MYRC has such a strong focus on non-violent dispute resolution. There had been an unusual situation where outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta was supporting his former opponent Raila Odinga rather than his own deputy, William Ruto. In spite of this, Ruto was the winner, although the contest was close. Ruto received 7,176,141 (50.49 percent) of the votes, narrowly beating his rival Odinga, who came in with 6,942,930 votes (48.85 percent). After a significant period of vote review, Ruto was inaugurated on September 13 as the 5^th President since Kenya’s Independence. Although the close vote created significant tension and some violence, we are relieved that there was no widespread chaos.  Ruto’s Cabinet Secretaries were confirmed and the transition completed on October 28. As our young people see that peaceful transitions are possible, we will continue our focus on providing them the skills to resolve conflicts through discussion, negotiation, and compromise.

Since its founding in 2009, the MYRC has created a broad array of vibrant programs for the poorest youth in Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya, on the shores of Lake Victoria. Many of these girls and boys are now leading productive lives as young adults using the personal and professional skills they learned by spending their time not on the streets or in some back alley, but on the football pitch, in the recording studio, making videos about Manyatta life, discussing how to avoid disease, drugs, and alcohol, and learning how to get along with their friends and family.  To keep all of this going into the future, we need your continuing help.  We need your financial contribution. 

Thank you for helping us get to this point. May 2023 bring a peaceful, productive year for the young people of the Manyatta Youth Resource Centre!