Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) Founder and CEO Dr. Kennedy Odede on Monday met Mijikende Kaya Elders and discussed community development in the coastal region.
Led by their chairman Mzee Mwinyi Mwalimu Mgwisho, the elders thanked Dr. Odede for rolling out various development projects in the region.
“We are glad to be hear with you today. We’ve seen what SHOFCO has done in this region, but we have never met you.
“We welcome you to the coastal region because you bring us development without expecting anything in return,” Mzee Mwinyi said.
The chairman praised SHOFCO for recognizing them, saying many organisations have tried to help the people of Mombasa without involving them and they failed.
“We must recognize that there are people wherever you go. We as elders are here to give advice and bless the work of your hands.
“Elders have experience and they know areas of development that can benefit the people. We are here today to discuss that and thank you for coming to listen to us,” he added.
He further invited Dr. Odede to their shrine where he will be installed as a Kaya elder.
“You are now one of us. You have helped our children to go to school, built community centres, built health centres, water distribution and many more projects. That makes you one of us and we want to welcome you as per our culture,” Mzee Mwinyi stated.
On his part, Dr Odede promised to work with the elders to uplift the lives of people in the coastal region, especially the youth who have been ruined by drugs.
“This region is full of potential. We can do a lot together. We are piloting smart farming in Kilifi and we hope to extend the same to other parts of this region.
“We need to teach our people how to use their land to benefit them. This region has a lot of idle land that can be used for agriculture,” Dr. Odede said.
The SHOFCO founder was on a 2-day development tour of Mombasa County.
During his tour, he opened a 3-storey community centre in Kisauni Constituency that hosts several empowerment programmes.
“We have built this resource centre to help the people of Kisauni. We will have health, gender, sustainable livelihood and community advocacy programmes here.
“We also have two halls that can be used by the community to hold weddings and meetings. They can also rent it out and earn money from it that can be used to sustain it and support other programmes,” he said.
The launch event was attended by Mombasa Woman Representative Zamzam Mohamed who praised SHOFCO for what it has done for the coastal region residents.
“You have changed lives across our slums. Our women have been empowered and our youth have been sponsored to go back to school. Others have been trained to start businesses and given grants. The crime rate has gone down because of this and we thank SHOFCO for it,” Zamzam said.
Zamzam also promised to partner with SHOFCO, especially in gender programmes.
“We need to combine resources to help our people, especially women and young people. I really love what SHOFCO is doing and we can partner together. If SHOFCO digs a borehole, I will buy a water tank,” she promised.
