GUCHA COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATION (CBO) has Poverty Eradication as one of its major programs in its entire geographical area of coverage. Most people in the entire Kisii County live below poverty line. A large number of them engage in subsistence farming which does not yield much since most of their lands are already exhausted following the small size of the land due to overpopulation. Due to poverty, most people cannot afford to buy fertilizer more regularly to enable the land renew its productivity hence poor production. Besides, most of the people are drunkards and so there is the tendency of irresponsibility in terms of taking care of family needs such as education, provision of food, clothing and shelter.
Now the CBO is currently engaged on a ten(10) year program to ensure that by then end of the period there shall be no family that is unable to educate, feed and also provide shelter and also clothing. For the CBO to achieve that, it has for the last three years engaged in the following programs under poverty eradication in order to bring to a halt if not total mitigation to the entire financial incapacitation of women in its entire geographical area of coverage;

Women Empowerment Program:

Gucha Community Based Organization works in Kisii County and which County is traditionally patriarchal by nature and totally rooted in its culture and traditions. In Kisii County, men are the heads of their household and main decision makers where the voice of women is never allowed to be heard leave alone to think on their own. Here women are not allowed to own property nor think of any investment in their own name. To do that is considered abomination in regard to Kisii customary provisions. Here women are just there to bear children, do the shamba work and be house wives. Here women are not allowed to own money and whatever money they may be having whether given to them by friends, relatives or even money earned through doing contractual jobs and rightfully earned, that money at the end of the day must be surrendered to the man who is the head of the family to decide on what to do with it.
It was on light of this that Gucha Community Based Organization came to conclusion to start a program of intervention and enable women to realize of their existing rights and have them empowered with information in order to free them and break the traditions that have all along enslaved them and made them miserable and out of touch with the real world hence the women empowerment program.
In this program, the CBO has brought all women together be it widows or single mothers and has assisted them to register themselves with the Government of Kenya under the Ministry of Social Development as either widow women groups or normal women groups. So far the CBO has thirty (30) Women groups active and running under the umbrella and supervision of the CBO.The CBO through its partnership with the National and County Governments, Donors and well wishers has managed to solicit funds which it has distributed to various women groups as starting capital for different micro-business activities according to their different capacities and type of business. Before the women chose on the type of business to carry out, the CBO held a two weeks seminar and engaged various business experts who took all the women groups through the various micro-business ventures that be, their advantages and disadvantages and also the kind of risk each kind of business attracted. On conclusion of the two weeks seminar, the women groups settled on the following; Charcoal selling, Chicken- rearing Growing of Indigenous vegetables embroidery, green groceries, brick making, stone breaking and Napier grass growing. Each women group after being financially empowered went down to business and as at now we have a total number of one thousand five hundred (1,500) women who have directly benefited out of this program. We have hitherto a total of sixty five(65) women groups registered under the CBO but only forty (15) groups have been assisted financially while the rest are awaiting pending the financial assistance expected from our well-wishers and donors.
However, besides the 15 groups already assisted financially by the CBO, the 10 pending groups are equally busy doing their businesses in their small way as they await for funding. Whenever the CBO representative goes round to visit, the 10 groups are also visit just to make sure that they do not lose focus.
All the 65 women groups are currently busy planting Napier Grass, making Bricks for house construction, Breaking of stones for construction, planting Bananas and Avocados for making biscuits and oil respectively, doing dairy farming for purposes of selling milk while others are busy breaking stones to make them into ballast and hardcore for house foundation.
Besides, the CBO takes group executives to a seminar retreat at the end of each financial year to meet with other group executives from other parts of the country. Here they share their experiences, challenges and ways on how to improve on areas they fell they have not done to their best.
This program has since brought a lot of changes to our women especially in regard to creation of employment opportunities to other community women and youth especially girls ,self esteem in women which has been highly elevated, respect, financial empowerment, social and economic contribution to the entire Gucha Community something that has seen change of attitude towards women. This program has seen more women taking their children to school without any financial hiccups as it used to be in the past

Monitoring and evaluation:

The CBO has been doing monitoring and evaluation through committees trained by the CBO with the help of the Government and NGOs on the aspect of monitoring and evaluation. The CBO does the supervision through their appointed officers for every locality who work closely with the relevant committee to ensure that the women groups are well updated and their immediate concerns are addressed. There is regular visitation on weekly basis by the appointed CBO officer who in turn gives them any advice and listens and documents all concerns to be addressed by the CBO.
In the course of the weekly visits by the CBO officer, the officer is able to closely monitor the rate of growth of the various groups, the ranking of the various groups and also able to note any reasons for stagnation in case of any and how to solve them.

Motivation

The CBO also has a motivational mechanism whereby the group which performs best is given recognition and rewarded by being added more funds to improve on their business and also the best ten groups are given an opportunity to go for a special retreat to a place of their choice at the end of each financial year. This has seen many of the women groups compete and this has resulted to great performance of the groups.
The CBO looks forward to carrying out more seminars and trainings on record keeping, accountability, good Governance, family Life Orientation program, will- making and leadership skills among others.

Youth Empowerment

Youths in Kisii county, have for a long time now faced a server problem to do with rampant unemployment which has seen the community experience great nightmares due to crimes committed by the youth orchestrated by their state of idleness and their relentless desire to have money or better still to have money that they can on and use it in whichever way they may so wish. The desire and lack of money has led the youths to engage themselves in all sorts of crimes ranging from social to economic. This has seen the community experience robbery, murder, rape and house breaking as some of the most rampant crimes from the youth. Drunkardness by most parents due to stress, idleness believes in superstitions.

Following the CBO’s experience on the youth’s behavior, the CBO thought of introducing a ten year (10) youth empowerment program running up to the year 2027 hence the start of the now Gucha Community Based Organization Youth empowerment program.

The CBO has in the last three years been engaged in financial and economic empowerment for the youth by assisting the youth to embark on micro-businesses which according to the CBO may assist the youth have themselves fully engage and busy and also able to provide for themselves financially and also to their entire family.

In order to achieve this, the CBO has for the last three years mobilized youths both in and without business and has so far managed to strain and assist the registration of fifty (50) youth groups drawn from all over the entire Gucha Sub-county Kisii County with the ministry of social services .The youth groups have equally been taken through various micro-business seminar training by business experts and they as the youth settled on the following businesses; rearing of chicken, car-wash, garbage collection, construction and manning of toilets for public use, brick making, stone breaking for purposes of selling ballast and buying and selling of tents and also plastic chairs.

All the 25 youth groups that underwent the training, have been assisted with capital to start their businesses of their choice and as at now, through the 25 youth groups, more than twenty thousand youth (20,000) have directly benefited from this program and this has resulted in not only empowering the youth but also it has led to youth turning themselves to promising employers and has seen the youth being in the forefront in matters pertaining to society building, economic contribution to their society and crimes associated with the youth due to unemployment have tremendously lessened and/or declined something that the entire society is proud of. The program has also created more hope for and confidence in the other upcoming youth

The CBO has exchange program and each year the youth are able to meet with other youths from various parts of the country to exchange their various experiences and challenges faced and the would be solutions. That way, the youth are able to learn more from their friends and this has seen most youth developing more hope in what they and can be able do.

Monitoring and evaluation:

The CBO has been doing monitoring and evaluation through committees trained by the CBO with the help of the Government and NGOs on the aspect of monitoring and evaluation. The CBO does the supervision through their appointed officers for every locality who work closely with the relevant committee to ensure that the women groups are well updated and their immediate concerns are addressed. There is regular visitation on weekly basis by the appointed CBO officer who in turn gives them any advice and listens and documents all concerns to be addressed by the CBO.

In the course of the weekly visits by the CBO officer, the officer is able to closely monitor the rate of growth of the various groups, the ranking of the various groups and also able to note any reasons for stagnation in case of any and how to solve them.

Motivation

The CBO also has a motivational mechanism whereby the group which performs best is given recognition and rewarded by being added more funds to improve on their business and also the best ten groups are given an opportunity to go for a special retreat to a place of their choice at the end of each financial year. This has seen many of the women groups compete and this has resulted to great performance of the groups.

The CBO looks forward to carrying out more seminars and trainings on record keeping, accountability, good Governance, family Life Orientation program, will- making and leadership skills among others.