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Career Guidance

The Problem
The Problem

Eighty percent of Kenya’s unemployed are youth aged 15 - 34. In Mombasa, the youth unemployment rate is 44% – 21.2 percentage points higher than the national average. Even among well-educated youth, professional networks that arise from family members are often determinative of their employment prospects. Youth from low-income families, almost by definition, lack such connections. This systemic barrier further perpetuates inequality.

Solution
Our Solution

We engage the private sector in the fight against generational poverty by partnering with employers to identify job opportunities suited to our alumni. We also coach our alumni through their transition from school to work.

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This work is successful because we leverage the strengths of youth and the private sector to foster each other's success. By partnering with employers to offer direct referrals to our alumni we help make career opportunities more readily available to youth from low-income families; and by connecting our employer partners with Hatua alumni we help them identify a pool of high potential, skilled recruits to meet their need for growth. In an environment where nepotism often creates barriers to entry, engaging the private sector to the fight against generational poverty is helping to create systemic change.  

Through the initiative of our alumni, the support of their mentors, one-on-one coaching and direct referrals to our employer partners, more than 90% of our alumni successfully join the workforce within one year of graduating from college or university. On average our alumni are earning 5X the international poverty line, and 3X the combined household income of their parents. This is a total transformation from poverty to professional careers.

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As our alumni mature into their careers we encourage them to give back. Already we are seeing a strong trend of satisfied employers recruiting multiple Hatua alumni. In this way, our alumni, once employed, are helping to open doors for others who follow in their footsteps. Our alumni are also giving back financially. In the past year, 92.5% of our alumni made a donation to Hatua, collectively sponsoring 2 students. Most significantly, our alumni are helping to pay school fees for 102 relatives, friends, and community members.

As our alumni build their networks within professional circles they remain well networked among themselves and networked within the low-income communities they come from. In this way, Hatua’s alumni are creating systemic change by extending professional networks into previously un-networked communities.

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The Impact
The Impact
0
Hatua alumni
0%
Employment within one year
$0
Average monthly income
0
Students educated by Alumni

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