Skills Maishani

About us

Skills Maishani is a platform which provides life skills training and mentorship through play. Founded in 2022, it was established to bridge the gap between academic and parental engagement by providing adolescents and youths with essential life skills through gamified resource materials to empower them in building social cohesion, nurture decision making skills and acquire knowledge prerequisite for life out of school.
Our programs provide much needed life skills and knowledge to young people in the areas of safety and wellness, finance, legal knowledge in respect to labour, intellectual property laws and sexual and reproductive health. Skills Maishani loosely translated as skills for life as the name suggests, seeks to inculcate general life skills that every child and young person requires and which they would need for the rest of their lives. These are skills meant to nurture and assist young people in understanding the world in all its socio-economic and political forms and help them navigate through society, education, career et al.

Vision
Promote the learning, sharing, growth and development of life skills.

Mission
To provide mentorship to young people and engage them in interactive learning on building confidence, improving self-awareness, and acquiring life skills and knowledge to encourage initiative taking.

Thematic areas:
• Safety & Wellness Skills
• Sexual & Reproductive Health Skills
• Financial Literacy Skills
• Legal life skills

Our programs:
• Teen Wellness Program: Teen Wellness program was established to impact adolescent teens with out-of-school life skills vital for the children’s physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Wellness skills necessitates an out of the box thinking and enhances critical and decision-making capabilities. It creates a fertile ground for engagement and interactions among children leading to improved morale and boosting confidence and cooperation with peers. We focus on training safety skills and body care & autonomy.
• Youth Wellness Program: Young people require a constant flow of information on matters pertaining to personal security. Having attained majority age does not negate the fact that they are young, active, and susceptible to peer pressure. We offer a) online safety skills that educate youths on how to navigate the internet and b) GBV safety skills that sensitize young people with knowledge on what constitutes abuse and mitigation.
• Youth Readiness Program: This program is aimed at impacting young people with legal education on matters pertaining to labor, employment, and intellectual property. Youths are susceptible to unfair employment terms, unfavorable working conditions, and theft of ideas and innovations by unscrupulous companies.
• Financial Literacy: This program is aimed at providing young people with prerequisite tools to understand the concept of money, saving through banks, SACCOs, credit management, and most importantly the legal liabilities attached to money such as taxes, licenses, etc.
• Advogames (Advocacy through Games): Advogames is an initiative intertwined with the teen and youth the programmes aimed at advocating for pertinent issues through gamified content created solely for the purpose of enriching the life skills mentorship sessions under the teen and youth wellness programmes to create a fun and interactive environment. Incorporating games in life skills and mentorship sessions provides an opportunity for young people to think outside the box, improve critical thinking skills and self evaluation. The games are designed with young people in mind to provide them with an innovative method of retaining information, learning and boosting problem solving skills. Our life skills workshops dubbed ‘Mentor Play” utilize colourful, visually appealing games creating a relaxed and safe atmosphere for young people to play, learn, share and grow.

How we work:
Skills Maishani Life Skills Programs help teens and youths:
• To build mental strength by nurturing resilience and encouraging smart decision making
• To create healthy social habits by boosting positive body image & self-esteem; enhancing their understanding of the social environment; encouraging them to learn about their rights and responsibilities and teaching them to understand the world of work.
• To develop well rounded individuals by mentoring them and teaching them how to mitigate risky behavior.

Samantha Saru is the Founder and Director of Skills Maishani.

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.