The Vizazi Foundation in the Netherlands is officially dissolved in September 2022 and after 10 years of working closely with our local partners in the informal settlement of Mathare I Nairobi I Kenya, we want to thank you all for making it happen! Please check out this clip for an impression of the amazing work!
Why we do it
In 2012 the founder of Vizazi started a pilot on counselling in the society of Mathare in order to deliver an alternative intervention for an answer to the call of UN HABITAT for permanent counselling and psychological support services to stabilise youth as part of building urban safety. This counselling program confronts the Kenyan community, the younger demographic in particular, with their behaviour, thereby creating an awareness that results in the people taking ownership and control of their own lives.
How we differentiate
Vizazi Foundation offers an alternative additional service on counselling to the existing empowerment programs of high risk youth. It is the newest additional tool to existing youth curricula offered by local organisations in informal settlements. It uses the ‘Train of Trainer’ approach which ensures that the gained experience will be passed on, resulting in a safer and more secure future for this generation and the next.
Product – ‘Social Upgrading Program | SUP’
We offer our training and counselling methods under the name of ‘Social Upgrading Program’. SUP is designed to work on a mental, emotional and social level, challenging youth to think and act responsibly in order to become owners of their life.
The expertise of Vizazi is based on more than a decade of experience working with at-risk youth. SUP tapped into the already existing resilience of these youth facing the most degrading circumstances. Vizazi beliefs that the power of youth in high risk areas can divert beyond measurement when the proper guidance is available. SUP has cultivated from this experience crucial life lessons as an inspiration for all kind of youth worldwide.
SUP consists of:
- Equip | training to think and act more responsible through a peer-helping approach
- Write Junior Club | training to decrease symptoms of stress & trauma
- Kata Temper | training on anger management
- Sekete | training to create sex(ual) awareness
- Sikika | training for youth to strengthen their identity and assertiveness
- ‘My Drive In Life’ | training to create awareness of motivational resources in life
For whom
Youth / Schools / CBOs & NGOs
Vizazi Foundation designed the ‘Social Upgrading Program‘ | SUP specifically as a training package targeted youth between 6 and 26 years from different background and social contexts, who struggle with one or more of:
- identity problems and low self esteem
- lacking focus or purpose in life
- growing up in dysfunctional family structures
- stress and trauma
- depression and anxiety
- impulsive and hyperactive behaviour
- acting out behaviour like aggression, delinquency and drug abuse
- school dropout
Vizazi can be consulted by individuals, private schools, CBOs and NGOs for training, boosters and expertise in general regarding the ‘Social Upgrading Program’.
Approach
‘Train the Trainers’
SUP uses the ‘Train the Trainer’ approach in which local youth are trained to train their fellow peers. Vizazi also appoints them as the ambassadors of the programs and as the positive role models of the community. This ensures that the gained experience will be passed on, resulting in a safer and more secure future for this generation and the next.
‘Counselling method’
The methodology of SUP is based on cognitive behavioural therapy reinforced by positive peer-to-peer dynamics of the group embedded in systemic approach. To ensure counselling occurs on the most effective level, participants are counselled in a secure setting and in appropriate groups to encompass and maintain group dynamics. Important key values implemented in the SUP include: bottom-up, ownership, ‘positive peer pressure’, inclusiveness, evidence-based, cultural sensitivity, social ecology and relabelling.
‘Team building & Supervision’
Supervision is another way in which quality is maintained throughout the programs. Supervision as part of team building is a crucial element in the establishment of Vizazi Foundation. Vizazi is convinced that teamwork determines the success of programs. It challenges interpersonal themes next to group dynamics. This is effectuated by offering interventions as supervision and coaching on individual and group level. Monitoring is carried out in close collaboration with local organisation in a hierarchically organised manner.
Impact
Vizazi Foundation collaborates with Vizazi and focuses on supporting Vizazi’s ambition to enrol three to six times a year four training programs with local organisations on counselling in Mathare. Vizazi has since 2012 served more then 5000 youth in the program through a Training of Trainers approach: local youth are trained to serve their peers.
In 2022, after 10 years of collaborating closely with our local partners, the board of Vizazi Foundation decided for several reasons to dissolve the status of the foundation and will use the coming months to guide this process of liquidation. Please read here the background story behind their decision (in Dutch!) and check out our clip above in which the true hero’s, our facilitators of SUP and partners on the ground, reflect on our long term collaboration and be inspired!
Please click here for the Vizazi Foundation annual report for 2022.
Jamii kwa Jamii I Food 4 Thoughts
Resilience I Drive I Creativity I Power
Jamii kwa Jamii stands for family to family l community to community. This was a pilot initiative for food distribution with a sustainable angle in the informal settlement Mathare I Nairobi by three organisations: Vizazi Foundation, PaaMoja Initiative and Maji Mazuri who have been implementing since 2012 the SUP l ‘Social Upgrading Programs’ in Mathare l Nairobi l Kenya.
It was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging on the creativity and resilience of the Mathare community to create a self-sustaining system whereby each person has a part to play. This initiative aimed to utilize skills, strengths and stories to engage individuals with different capabilities to build sustainable change while providing 18 families (to start) with food relief for three months.
Six families with educated and talented youth (the ‘Youth Promo Team’) designed programs that support six families with able bodied individuals (the ‘New Normal Entrepreneurs’) who could create (again) revenue by innovating new ways to boost and transform their business to the new reality.
Parallel they met the emerging needs and were inspired by six families with a more vulnerable character in these times like aged and sick individuals (the ‘Story Tellers’) sharing life experiences and lessons. They leaned on the other social circles as the entrepreneurs and youth to promote the drive, power and resilience of the Mathare community and inspire to provide revenue by quotes on merchandise.
Jamii kwa Jamii created a pool of resources that were shared and invested back into the community and ensure their dignity. An initiative that led to the concept of ‘Food 4 Thoughts’ which reassures the released energy as value to sustain a community to community response to the COVID -19 pandemic.
Please click here for the detailed JkJ report I February 2022 I Nairobi I Kenya.
For inspiration: please check out the Facebook page of JkJ! Enjoy!
With special thanks to our partners:
PaaMoja Initiative I http://paamoja.org/
Maji Mazuri I https://majimazuri.org/