East Africa Summit 2013

Happy birthday GoDown Art centre!  It’s now ten years since inception and indeed you are a testimony to be emulated: if you want to run fast you will run alone, while if you want to go far you need to work with others.  You have indeed gone far and wide in shaping the art industry by providing the much needed platform for artists to learn, share and co-create while finding lasting synergies. 

I was honored to be part of the celebrations which were well organized from day one. I was able to connect with like-minded creative’s from different genres of art such as digital artists, sculptures, painters, curators, script writers, choreographer just mention but a few. I also learned a lot from the moderators and the panelist who shared their vast knowledge in ICT, policies development, economics etc.

My ten take-away during the summit are as follows:

• Artist needs to collaborate and co-create.
• It is important for an artist to adapt to the changing trends notably Information Communication Technology and different policies that surround our work.
• We need to clearly understand and define the markets that we operate in.
• An artist guild would help shape creative economy and ensure quality of work produced across the board.
• In the near future there’s going to be overwhelming need for content especial in the ICT sector!
• As artists we should think on uploading creative contents as much as we continue downloading.
• The question we need to ask ourselves is how can we involve other sectors to help us reach our agendas
• For an artist to prosper they should join artist networks like arterial…
• The big challenge artist’s face is management of their work, and generally of the sector. In some countries like Tanzania, it’s is costly to being an artist from abroad. This poses a great threat to the East African community working together. The action point is for the entire artist network to come together and make our voices heard in lobbying for some punitive policies to be removed.
• Each individual artist should think on how to pass the skills to the young generation.

I thank The GoDown for having achieved a great milestone, and I look forward to the next summit and wish you all the best in the next ten years road map.

Mathare North Rangers F.C

Mathare North Rangers F.c is one of the best teams in the slums of Mathare North. Since inception it has attracted youths who are interested in footballing activities whereby exposing their talents to the public while creating opportunities / platform for other young upcoming footballers.

The team is one of the 'vehicles' that Wilsen Initiative (Wi) uses to foster understanding and create lasting relationships amongst the youth and their community. Some of the skills the footballers acquire directly or indirectly are; leadership, teamwork, sportsmanship, decision making amongst others.

At the moment Mathare North Rangers F.C has a total of thirty players who have been selected from a competitive process whereby they express passion in football as an agent of change. Their big dreams is playing in the Kenyan Premier League and oversees leagues which we believe is achievable through discipline and hard work.

We actively participate in the MYSA (Mathare Youth Sports Association) zonal league with the vision of playing in tournaments and other competitive leagues. Our visions is hindered by lack of resources to run the club more professionally,  but we are determined to give the youths a professional alternative to play and express their talents which is non-existing in many slums in Kenya due to mismanagement, lack of resources and other downfalls.

Our clubs values are;

•     Discipline
•     Team work
•     Respect
•     Fair Play
•     Passion Vs. Talent
•     Motivation
•     Open communication
•     Role modeling

“To dream anything that you want to dream. That’s the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.” Bernard Edmonds

I Love Teaching - Musoma, Tanzania Exprience

I was honored to be part of the team at Musoma Information Center based in Eastern edge of Lake Victoria in Mara region in Tanzania. Since I visited the place in 2011, there has been tremendous improvement on how the trainers conducts training and connects with the students in both outdoors and class activities.

Coaching is one of the core activities Nairobits uses in connecting senior trainers from Nairobi, Kenya to train and share their experiences with other subsidiary projects in Tanzania and Uganda.

Trainers and students every morning plays basketball as part of their warm-up games.

Purpose of the visit!

My visit was purposed to train both the students and trainers in more advanced skills in web / graphic design and related technologies.

We divided the training into two segments as follows;-

Students Segment;

•  Review of current students work and give feedback.
• Teach and test the student on conceptualization (Think & Decide).
• Technical knowledge transfer ( CSS, HTML forms and Joomla)
• Presentation skills – Both students and trainers presented their work.

Trainers Segment (TOT)

• General overview of Joomla and Word Press.
• Review of websites online.
• Introduction to PHP.

Training Methodology
Embracing our teaching philosophy of learning by doing we were able to achieve the following;

• Trainer illustrations on the board and group discussions
• Individual assignments.
• Aptitude test.
• Power point presentation and analyzing best practices.