Kenya: A gap delightfully filled – I Choose Life (ICL) Africa

Meet Julius Almasa, a 20 year old student at Kipkabus Technical Institute undertaking a diploma course in carpentry. Julius is a resident of Wounifor village, Ainabkoi/Olare ward in Ainabkoi Sub-County. Coming from a humble background, his parents couldn’t raise enough money to sustain his siblings, especially after his father lost his job. Being the first born in the family, Julius was prompted to drop out of school so as to fill the gap in fending for the family.

“My search for a job proved futile and I decided to try my luck in masonry. I must say it wasn’t easy for me since the site manager would often take advantage of my age, resulting to low pay and at times no pay at all; so I decided to quit.” Say Julius. After months of being jobless, a friend offered Julius work at his carpentry workshop. Here he sharpened his skills in carpentry, learnt how to make furniture and earned Kshs 300 a day which was much better, compared to his previous job. At first this amount seemed a lot and he could not account for it, until he was introduced to the SEAL program that offered trainings on economic empowerment.

‘I look forward to expanding my business by having different branches within this area and different towns so as to create job opportunities to youths which will go a long way in eradicating poverty in my community’ by Julius Almasa.

During the training, the SEAL trainees were required to form groups that would help them save some money and later borrow loans from the group, repayable over a period of time and that is when Julius joined Amani Group. He was trained on entrepreneurship skills which included saving, record keeping and business idea generation. It is through this knowledge that the idea of starting his own workshop was born. He began to save any extra coin he got after meeting his family’s basic needs and got a loan of Ksh.10, 000 that the group granted him twice. He used the money as capital where he bought few pieces of timber and sold them at a profit.

By January 2019, Timothy had saved enough to get a loan of Ksh 15,000 which he used to pay part of the money for the wood polishing machine. “It has really helped in making work easier since I do not waste time and money travelling from one place to another to get help for different services needed, therefore getting more profit. This helped pay my school fees and that of my siblings, a need I delightfully met for my father. I look forward to expanding my business by having different branches within this area and different towns so as to create job opportunities to youth which will go a long way in eradicating poverty in my community.” Narrates Julius.

“When I learnt, I didn’t need to have big money to start my business, I started my cosmetics business immediately!”

“With my income, I pay my children’s school fees, health issues and my personal needs.”

The Sustainable Livelihoods Programme (SLP)

Job Openings

Global Impact of the War in Ukraine

Kenya: A gap delightfully filled – I Choose Life (ICL) Africa