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00:00 [ Music ]
00:02 >> Nowadays, majority of the things that we do is digital.
00:06 When it comes to jobs, employment, there's a lot of computer involved.
00:11 >> Kakuma seems to be overloaded with refugees.
00:16 >> We realized that there's a gap when it comes to digital skills within the camp.
00:22 So we decided that it would be beneficial for the youth to have digital skills.
00:28 [ Music ]
00:32 >> With this digital training, everyone will have access to anything that they need online.
00:39 Most of our beneficiaries are really trying to do something that is much better.
00:44 Whatever we do, we are trying to make sure that we reach them at the time that they need us.
00:50 My name is Vasco Hamesi, the co-founder of Savik.
00:54 [ Music ]
01:04 I'm a refugee from DRC, Congo.
01:07 I fled my country with the civil war that was happening.
01:12 I decided to come here to Kenya.
01:15 The UNHCR and the government welcomed me here as a refugee.
01:20 Since then, we've been trying to make sure that our refugees have access to education.
01:25 [ Music ]
01:28 It's shown that almost 90% are illiterate.
01:33 We started 2010.
01:34 Our intention was to make sure that we can contribute to our fellow refugees.
01:38 So we decided to open some classes, and we started as a small group.
01:44 [ Music ]
01:46 In 2014, it's when we formalized to be registered as a community-based organization.
01:51 [ Music ]
01:54 >> The community that we serve here in Kakuma Refugee Camp is from a diverse background.
02:01 We have refugees particularly from the Eastern African community.
02:06 We focus in three major areas, that is education, livelihoods, and sexual reproductive health.
02:14 For the education sector, we have digital courses.
02:18 We also have the language courses, that is the English courses, so that the youth who come out study with us.
02:24 They can be able to talk in English and even find jobs, even continue their schools in English.
02:29 In the livelihood sector, we offer business training.
02:33 [ Music ]
02:35 We also have the tailoring course, and we have the small business loans,
02:40 where we give out grants to small businesses so that they may be able to begin their livelihood once they finish training.
02:50 We do also have sewing machine loans, where we give students who have finished tailoring course machines for sexual reproductive health.
02:59 We deal with young women and men below the ages of 35, teaching them how to take care of themselves and their rights.
03:09 [ Music ]
03:12 What inspired me to have computer classes is that I've seen around the world everything is coming on digital platform.
03:22 And if we don't train our teenage mothers, they will just remain behind the wall.
03:29 Some of the challenges that we face currently is we don't have enough space.
03:33 We are trying to think where we can expand our center. Getting land around the camp, it's not easy.
03:40 Another thing is we're really struggling to look for more funding to reach more people,
03:45 so that we can reach a number that we dream everyone can have skills and get some opportunity that can enable them to get some income.
03:57 We do have successful alumni who studied with us and who have their own enterprises or employed working in a digital space.
04:06 When you go to the market, you will find our trainees. Most of them, they have open shop, and they are doing well with the shop that they have opened.
04:14 It was 2020 when I was introduced to SAVIK. In SAVIK, I have learned the two courses, which is computer, basic, and the advanced.
04:25 Now I'm enrolling in a university and doing it online.
04:29 Seeing our alumni become successful means that the change that we are offering to the community is becoming a reality.
04:43 Seeing alumni succeed in the field that they have trained in makes us proud, and it even encourages us to do even more.
04:52 The fact that we are seeing a lot of women in our course shows that the effort that we're doing is paying off,
04:59 and that women are starting to explore more options of earning an income, of becoming independent, and even provide for their families.
05:09 We hope that the women are an example in their communities to encourage more young girls in school, out of school,
05:17 to join vocational courses or even higher education, to pursue it and do something bigger and better.
05:24 In the future, we want to reach more youths. We want to have more supporters so that we can add more value to the community that is living here.
05:33 We need to expand, and we need to reach different corners of the world to provide the same skills to other fellow refugees who are in different countries.
05:44 We hope that as an organization, we grow even bigger. It takes effort, and yeah, we are ready to put in that effort.
05:52 [Music]