Gucha Community Based Organization is in partnership with other likeminded organizations ranging from NGOs, National and County Government, Donors and well wishers in order to help fundraise for purposes of assisting the children from the poor families, vulnerable and also the less privileged in society to not only access basic education but also help them realize their full potential.

Kisii County comprises people whose average daily earning is less than a dollar. This then simply translates to abject poverty. Most of the people do not have forma employment and so they do informal contractual work that earns them less than a dollar per day. Given the fact that most of these people have families that depend on them, livelihood becomes a great headache making life to be unbearable.

Educating children for most community members in the entire Gucha has for a long time not been a priority not because the people here do not want to but because thinking about that with their financial situation makes life to look and be more impossible than it already is. Most people in Gucha Sub-County have at most educated their children to form four and not beyond and the few who have managed to go beyond the form four can easily be numbered. This then explains the reason as to why Kisii as a region in Kisii County has lagged behind in the area of development comparatively. Gucha Community Based Organization has Education enhancement as one of its objectives in all its area of operation.

Hence the CBO in liaison with the Government both National and County together with all partners is currently engaged in a ten year Educational program aimed at improving the educational levels and standards to enable each and every child access not only basic education but also enable them achieve the highest educational heights according to each child’s ability and at the end of it be able to realize their full potential. To achieve that, the CBO intends to do the following within the ten year period till 2027;

School fee payment:

The CBO is currently on a ten year school fee payment for primary, secondary and vocational training institutions

Primary:

Gucha CBO intends to by the end of ten years assist at least ten thousand pupils to access basic education. This program is referred to as SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM. The pupils that shall be beneficiaries to the program shall all be drawn from poor, vulnerable, marginalized and also from the less privileged in society. The CBO employs the use of a well-designed criterion just to ensure that it is only those who really deserve that get the opportunity to be assisted. That way the CBO is in a good position to equitably distribute the available funds. Sponsorship program lasts for the eight years till a child completes primary education and if lucky and passes to proceed to secondary education, the CBO proceed with the child to secondary till the form four and University.

Secondary:

All students from poor families, less privileged, vulnerable that are unable to meet their required fees for them either to join secondary or to continue with their secondary education shall be assisted once they meet the criterion of the Gucha CBO. The CBO only assists in their fee payment, uniform and text books. The CBO has a well-trained Education committee drawn from the CBO executive members who after the applications have been done by all, it goes to each and every applicant’s family and does the assessment based on the information provided and gives recommendation either to the negative or positive.

Once the family visitation is over and the recommendations received in the CBO office, the CBO then goes ahead and approves those that have fully met the criteria and these are later called for orientation and given instructions on how to proceed under the sponsorship program.

Vocational Training:

It was realized that not all the sponsored students make it to university by the end of the four year secondary Education. The few who do not make it then become stranded given the background of their family financial status. Gucha CBO is in partnership with the Government and Donors running a two term five year program on vocational training to enable the youth already through their ‘0’ level education earn career skills to enable them employ themselves and uplift their families as was the intention of sponsorship.

The CBO through the help of Education Committee identifies all the cases for vocational training that must be drawn from only the registered youth and women groups with the CBO. Each family is only given one chance in order to enable all groups benefit out of the program. Once the selection has been done, the selected candidates make written applications to the CBO for the CBO to process the fee payment to the respective vocational institutions of their choice.

Students are sponsored to the following vocational institutions among others; Mechanics, tailoring, hairdressing and beauty therapy, Carpentry and masonry. These courses at most take two years to complete and after the training, the students are encouraged to open their own workshops and businesses so that they are self-employed as opposed to being employed. This program was started in January 2017 as a pilot project and the CBO gave 50 to the Gucha Community to try and see how it worked. The students were taken to Kisii National Polytechnic for masonry and carpentry, and mechanics and others to Kenyenya Polytechnic for hair dressing and beauty therapy.

The students graduated in January 2020 and most of them are already running their workshops and private businesses. This has led to the CBO requesting its partners to assist more funds to enable the CBO give more opportunities to the youth to pursue their careers. The CBO has 300 more students in various vocational institutions that joined in February 2020.

This program has seen most of the already trained and working youth totally distracted from crimes both social and economic and instead they are now mentoring the other youths and advising them to shun a way from such criminal activities. This program will besides creating job opportunities, transform the livelihood of many families and to a larger extent, improve the standards of living across the region.