White Orange Youth (WOY)

A message from John Kessy, Founder

“I am passionate about changing the lives of young people, and I think this can be traced back to when I was a child. I was the first born in my family and found that I naturally felt a responsibility to lead my younger brothers and sister.

While at school, I was chosen as a class monitor and later a school prefect, a role in which I began to realize my leadership gifts. After secondary school I joined the National Youth Forum, during which we discussed a lot about how young people can be agents of change and inspiration in Tanzania, and since then I have been motivated to lead young people to change their communities.

It is what led me to begin White Orange Youth. Our peer education program works with youth between the ages of 11 and 35 and aims to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and increase quality of life. I work with young people, commercial sex workers and drug users, and use peer education to spread the use of positive practices and dispel common myths around disease.

My vision is to see our community dedicated and working hard to improving their own quality of life – improving their own health, education and ultimately eradicating poverty themselves.”

About

All of the work the youth at WOY do is based on volunteer peer to peer education. This is based on the fact that many young people get their information about sexual health, life-goals and relationship advice from their peers. If those peers are giving out good advice, then young people will avoid following poor guidance and the difficult situations that may follow.

Peer Education Program

Peer educators go through an intensive 5-7 day training during which they are taught to educate their peers about HIV/AIDS prevention, life skills, overcoming peer pressure, reproductive health, relationship skills, STDs, puberty, and drug abuse. After completing the training, the youth go into the schools to lead workshops with students. WOY has reached thousands of young people through their youth activities.

Community Outreach

To sensitise the community about HIV/AIDS prevention and to reduce stigma, WOY also runs community outreach events in villages on market days. These events feature participatory drama, dance, discussion, art and comedy – all with an educational goal. WOY partners with other health organisations to carry out mobile HIV testing on these days as well. Through innovative outreach campaigns, more than 10,000 people have been educated or received HIV/AIDS testing and thousands of condoms have been successfully distributed to these targeted high-risk populations.

Stop Gender-Based Violence Program

WOY has also been running a Gender Based Violence (GBV) Program for Women, Children, and Young People, which is sponsored by a grant from the French Embassy. Both men and women from communities surrounding Moshi are participating in the program and learning about women’s rights and how to recognize and prevent gender-based violence.

Free to Dream Girls Program

This program aims to increase the level of inclusion of people at risk, especially girls, and advocates for equal opportunity participation in the development process. Free to Dream is reviving girls’ dreams by creating tailor made entrepreneurship skills, life skills and skills sexual reproductive health and rights education while fighting against gender based violence in their community. Each year the program recruits 25 girls from vulnerable background. These girls are striving to increase their financial wellbeing through three income generating projects: tailoring, soap making and spices.

Permaculture Project

Through Mama Hope Support, WOY managed to introduce a permaculture farm as a sustainability project. The project is in a rural setting and it aims to generate more internal income that can cover WOY’s running costs and reduce donor dependence. This project follows permaculture ethics; Care of the Earth, Care of the People and Sharing of Surplus. The farm motivates young people to learn about regenerative gardening techniques. It also provides a physical place for young people to learn other soft skills like life skills, sexual reproductive health and rights and civic education. The following permaculture elements are already established at the farm include compost toilets, fish ponds, beekeeping, vegetable garden, rabbit raising and poultry.

3-Year Goals

Community Information Center

John’s next goal for WOY is to transform the demo farm to be a community information center – including a computer lab – for the youth in his program so they can improve their literacy skills and become more competitive in the job market. Currently, we are raising chickens, and different kinds of birds, beekeeping, rabbits and horticulture. We plan to extend fish ponds and beekeeping and establish value addition process unity for our produce.

Additional long term goals include contracting a safe house to provide accommodations for girls and youths that experience violence, where they can temporarily stay while waiting for their cases to be resolved.