Mary Mwihaki Njogu

My project is ongoing as it is a project I have been undertaking for four years now. I am the founder of Smile Child Organization which has 221 youth volunteers. The implementation part of my project was to collect data on all our members. As a result, we have collected the data of ¾ of our members, with details being contacts and areas in which they would like to volunteer. So far, we have created seven clubs for volunteers to belong to, depending on the skills they want to volunteer.

Additionally, our next phase for implementation was to conduct an annual party for our organization. This we did and had 61 of our members physically join. We reviewed our agenda as an organization during the party and strengthened our bond. 

I am currently a volunteer at Smile Child Organization, where we create awareness of child abuse, train children on how to report abuse, and empower parents with social parenting skills. I recently completed an Empowerment Self-Defense course and became a certified instructor. I am working on a curriculum to train my community members on verbal and physical self-defense skills. I did my mini-training session online with an attendance of 67 youths. The session was part of a Youth Empowerment Conference for Kenyan youths, where I leveraged collaboration from UPG leaders and United for Ukraine sisters. Our critical Discussions were conducted by a total of 10 speakers with discussions in the Introduction to UPG mini-training session, UN SDGs, digital literacy and educational empowerment, Smile Child Organization testimonials, and United for Ukraine support.