November 16, 2022
SAYDS equip youths, taking them through interactive training on systems thinking, helping them to be more prone to think and construct their views on social issues, cutting across the social, economic, and political spheres.
My name is Raywe Ambrose Otieno. A man of few words, residing in the inner membranes of West Alego, Siaya County. I learned about SAYDS from a colleague when I volunteered at the Department of Water, Environment, and Natural Resources, Siaya County.
Before joining the team, I was unfamiliar with how complex problems come to be, what drives and maintains their existence, and how they “resist” solutions. After the interactive training sessions, I can now boast of vast knowledge in complex systems.
I have come to learn about different concepts in such systems and appreciate how effective this holistic approach is in addressing the social issues in our communities.
I have grown bold and open to ideas, and I have learned about the social problems affecting our daily lives, and those of others across the globe. My way of thinking has greatly shifted from seeing problems/situations/issues unilaterally to a more holistic and diverse angle. It has been quite a ride, filled with new ventures and learning ,and I am truly grateful for the opportunity.
My experience with the SAYDS Program has helped me gain technical skills like teamwork, policy-making and planning, and communication skills. I have also acquired professional skills like meeting facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and cultural competence.
As a team from Siaya County, we have managed to hold one stakeholder engagement workshop. We met a team that works to help teenagers. They particularly focus on teenage pregnancy and how it affects them, which is the social problem that my team chose to focus on during our time in the program. The meeting was insightful. The team presented their roadmap of activities geared towards addressing teenage pregnancy. The SAYDS Team also took them through Systems Thinking (Complex Analysis Toolkit), which was an eye opener for them.
The training has been very impactful knowledge-wise. I have gained skills and knowledge in other disciplines like cognition (understanding ones of one’s thought processes e.g problem solving, decision making, memory etc.), and metacognition (the process of thinking about one’s thinking processes and learning for example, planning to tackle a task) which I had no idea about before.
Though the program has been impactful and life-changing, we did encounter some challenges. If taken into account and improved upon, these challenges point to opportunities to make the program even greater which are worth exploring. Some of the challenges we encountered include: disengagement of fellow youth in the training program, which can be attributed to the virtual nature of the training sessions,and delays in the delivery of required work outputs and difficulties in tracking progress. We attributed the two latter problems to the weekly cadence of our training sessions which we felt didn’t offer us adequate room to engage with each other. This will be addressed by including more face-to-face interactions among the fellows. Not only will this help address the aforementioned problems, but it will also foster cohesion within the teams.
The work SAYDS is doing is essential for the development of Kenya; socially, economically, and politically. This is because SAYDS equip young people by taking them through interactive training on systems thinking and helping them to be more prone to thinking and intentionally constructing their views on social issues which cut across the social, economic, and political spheres. Additionally, their work strengthens the capacity and commitment of youth to implement policies to solve social problems in Kenya.
I would love to encourage young people to take up complexity and systems thinking as these skills enable one to not only effectively address social issues but also, meaningfully engage their communities and be at the forefront of directing change and development.
You will be placed in the appropriate team or project depending on your skills and experience. Please reach out if you can assist us in any of the following fields:
