Mkombozi prides itself on the self-reliance aspect of its services which enables (at least) 30 youth each year to initiate and sustain small businesses, to access credit and/or enter employment, and to move away from residential care and/or street life into halfway housing with their peers.
Notably, in 2006:
Notably, in 2008, Mkombozi hopes to pilot the "Giving Hope Programme" (scaled up from Rwanda and Kenya, and piloted in Arusha, Tanzania in phase 1). This programme supports child-headed households to enable the children to work together to support and sustain themselves. It capacitates them both economically and psychologically. Working in groups of children that are self-organised and self-managed, they are trained in small business skills, given seed money, and enabled through the income they raise to cover their household costs.
In Kenya, children have been trained and enabled to start kitchen gardens. Many are now able to buy chickens, rabbits, even a cow – these then become the assets of the children’s working group. Each group has an adult mentor. Whatever the resulting activity, the groups show that these children learn group empowerment and are stronger together than they could ever be alone in small family groups. In Kenya each district has a pair of social workers employed by Giving Hope who lead the children in their training and business plan, and serve as advisors and mentors. Giving Hope works in tandem with the local government, which informs the program's social workers of children in need.
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