Young African Express - Kenya - Jacaranda
Young African Express is a superb mechanism for reaching out to youth and providing them with ideas and news that can engage them in positive problem solving for their own futures and for the well-being of their communities. Most especially, this kind of information dissemination and knowledge sharing approach is a strategy that needs to be expanded to reach out to more youth lising in high transition and in conflict situations. It provides them with tools - ideas and experiences - that can catalyze their own thinking and sense of optimism about possibilities. I'm impressed with the African leadership that is engaged in technically leading this project and in the many contributors who believe in its value.
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Young African Express - Kenya - Jacaranda
by Carla Barbiero | Aug 09, 2009
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Young African Express is a superb mechanism for reaching out to youth and providing them with ideas and news that can engage them in positive problem solving for their own futures and for the well-being of their communities. Most especially, this kind of information dissemination and knowledge sharing approach is a strategy that needs to be expanded to reach out to more youth lising in high transition and in conflict situations. It provides them with tools - ideas and experiences - that can catalyze their own thinking and sense of optimism about possibilities. I'm impressed with the African leadership that is engaged in technically leading this project and in the many contributors who believe in its value.
Our organization is in complete agreement!! The Young African Express is one of the most impressive programs for education, creative thinking, empowerment, and community building for young people in Africa.
The potential for the program to grow and expand to every country in Africa and abroad is limitless. Over the past several years the YAE has developed into much more than a resource and education tool but rather a platform for change making ideas and positive thinking. It additionally creates jobs in industries and skills training areas that are experiencing growth.
I have been interacting on a regular basis with the multi-disciplinary team of the Young African Express since its very start in 2005. The Young African Express is a monthly magazine for schoolchildren (and their teachers) focusing on life skills, health and nutrition, and environmental education. I have been contributing to the technical information on some of the pages, and we have also used these pages on home gardening and agroforestry to produce a very nice book entitled "Trees and Gardens for Life: Practical Tips for Healthy Tree Nurseries and School Gardens".
An exciting development is that the Young African Express has been approved by the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), so it can be used as part of the official school programmes. I am currently coordinating an educational programme called “Healthy Learning” in collaboration with the Ministry of Education here in Kenya, the Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance (VVOB) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). The aim of this programme is to create opportunities for schoolchildren and their communities to acquire relevant skills and knowledge to grow up healthy. We feel that the Young African Express can significantly contribute to the objectives of our Healthy Learning programme, and we have therefore arranged for subscriptions for all the schools and districts involved in the programme. So far, the response has been very positive.
The team at Jacaranda Designs has always been extremely committed to high quality results and outputs: they are all very creative and technically skilled.
I am therefore highly recommending the Young African Express as a Champion of Quality Education in Africa, as the magazine for young people is clearly emerging as an innovative, high-impact trend-setter in education for sustainable development in the East Africa region and has great potential to help address global challenges such as sustainable agriculture, food and nutrition security, and climate change.
Tom Vandenbosch
Programme Coordinator, Healthy Learning
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) - VVOB