15th February 2021 at Oasis Mathare. Organized by Wilsen Initiative (Wi) in conjunction with Oasis Mathare. Location:- Oasis Mathare Juja road next to Mathare/ Huruma Chief’s camp. Charges:- The session on 15th February will be free of charge. Participants: – 18 years and above with interest in the digital sector especially photography. We only have 20 seats available, so if you’re interested register here http://shorturl.at/coGN7. This master session is ideal for the following people:-
Anyone who wants to kick start their journey in the digital economy especially in photography.
Anyone in the middle level career in the digital economy and is searching for different ways to harness their creativity and other ways of content creation.
Self taught & personal branding: – Anyone who wants to build a sustainable brand around self and product (what you do, why you do it and how best to monetize your work).
Anyone who is inspired to learn more in the digital economy and has taken the route of self learning as opposed to going to a college because of lack of fees.
The aim of children and teens master session is to use art to teach life-skills and create a platform that the children and teens will express themselves freely (safe space) on matters that affects their well-being in terms of pursuing their talents, education, handling different life conflicts etc. This platform creates an avenue for the participants to interact with mentors and coaches who are well versed with matters to do with children’s / youth / teen’s overall development. Our mentors have the right qualifications and many years of experience in the subject matter.
– Safe space, Open dialogue, mental health, psychosocial support & visual arts dubbed, in the mind of a young person.
Theme based on: See / Feel / Interact / Share
Our Main Objectives
1. To encourage the participants to envisage a world of many possibilities in the right direction through what they do.
2. To organise master sessions for coaching, open dialogue and creative arts as seen in the eyes and mind of a young person.
Vision :- A safe society for all inspired by what we do. Mission:- We contribute positively to children and teens chosen journeys through mentorship, visual arts, games and life-skills training.
Problem description
There has been an influx of young people roaming the streets anyhow. Young people around 13 – 19 years are at higher risk of indulging in the behavior’s such as alcoholism, drugs and substance abuse, that pose a great threat for their well being and the general society in terms of crime rate and school dropouts among others issues.
We see a society where at the earliest stage young people lack mentorship program that would engage them on issues to do with building sustainable values, talent management, activity planning, handling peer pressure, hygiene etc., . We have heard stories of an increased crime rate as perpetuated by younger people who are mostly not fully engaged in meaningful activities when out of school.
The skill-up master session will try to fill the gap by working with organized groups to make it easy to track the participants to the levels of engaging their guardians and parents. The skills they will acquire will build onto what they are already doing in different spaces.
“Young people have great potentials, they only need mentors and coaches to keep their train on the right rails through mentorship, training and coaching. We can’t expect a big number of young people to excel in randomness especially out of school.” – Wilson Masaka Wilsen Initiative (Wi) founder & throughMylens
Who can join?
1. Both boys and girls between 13 – 19 years. 2. A young person who is already engaged in other recognized spaces or well organized groups for example community organization, community libraries, soccer teams, church groups etc. 3. Children 10 – 12 years, must be accompanied with a parent or guardian.
Why Visual Arts?
Arts helps children and youth develop important skills, for example critical thinking, problem solving, self expression, self awareness, and creativity which can be a good outlet to help them relieve stress. All this acquired skills and knowledge can be applied in / out of schools and can help the participants make informed decisions.
How to provide life-skill through art and dialogue?
The CHALLENGE
The participants are given a topic of concern for example Covid-19 which they will be required to express its impact as seen by them in an artistic form. The participants will design their own unique compositions in relation to the subject matter using available simple tools and materials
The master trainer will lead an exercise that defines a problem and together the participants will develop a solution. On the other hand, there will be discussions on emerging trends that the children / youth should be aware of as destructive elements that can block them from achieving their desired future for example explicit music content, drug abuse, alcoholism etc.
Our Mentors & Coaches
To achieve this we always work with the best and passionate artist, for example Patrick Mukabi a renowned international artist based in Kenya with many years of experience working with children, youth and emerging artists of any age.
We thank everyone who made the session at Oasis Mathare a success on 16th January 2021. Below are picture of today.
On 16th January 2021 +throughMylen, Patrick Mukabi, Wilsen Initiative (WI) and Oasis Mathare will host a skill up session that targets young people between the age of 13 years -15 years.
The session will give the participants a chance to interact with the mentors in different subjects of their expertise. Mr. Patrick Mukabi aka ‘Panye’ will be the lead mentor / facilitator, especially on the visual art, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving exercises. Oasis Mathare, Wilsen Initiative and +throughMylens have selected 16 young people from different spaces for example soccer players, aspiring artists, aspiring leaders from the age of 13 years to 15 years. This is the first pilot and should we acquire the adequate resources we will organize many of this type of out of school master session that will target different sphere of life.
We would like to reach at least 500 children by the end of the year, but all depends will availability of funds. Please, link us to the next level partner who can help with sponsorships of the season to allow the children to be trained at no cost and support us with other logistical / facilitation issues. You can support our journey by donating time, space, referrals for fundraising, donate books for children, etc. Get in touch with me at wilson.masaka@gmail.com
“Young people have great potentials, they only need mentors and coaches to keep their train on the right rails through mentorship, training and coaching. We can’t expect a big number of young people to excel in randomness especially out of school.” – Wilson Masaka Wilsen Initiative (Wi) founder & +throughMylens. http://www.wilsenx.blogspot.com Note:- Get in touch with me at wilson.masaka@gmail.com Note: – For this session it will be free for all participants should we get funding that can support our line of work further in reaching the annual goal, but we look at running both paid sessions in different spaces.
We take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the annual tournament. The year 2020 was a tough year that left the children stay away from school for the longest time in history due to Covid-19 pandemic (March to December 2020).This situation also amplified other risks in children’s space from early married, drug abuse, mental health, roaming the streets anyhow, domestic violence, child labor, indulging in crime related activities just to mention but a few. We thought it was wise to organize a sensitization activity through soccer late in December2020 that would restore hope and offer guidance on how to live in this challenge times, through the platform we believed it was more safer than leaving the children vulnerable to other form of abuses. Most of our activities are usually not planned because we don’t have the resources which includes funds to plan ahead of time and make the desired impact. We thank everyone who came on board on short notice to support the tournament in term of prizes for the teams, volunteering time, organizing the teams etc.
Let hope the year 2021 will be more favorable and prosperous to do more together
Congratulations to all the teams that participated in the two weeks tournament and we hope even without emerging the top winners you were able to learn something during the tournament.
Happy New Year and may 2021 bring all that you have wished for in soccer and beyond
Wilsen Initiative 