Kenya: KUTH AWENDO RESOURCE CENTER

About the local hosting organization

The Kuth Awendo Resource Centre is a community development hub located in Ayweyo, Kisumu County, Kenya. Established in 2019 by the Center for International Voluntary Service (CIVS) Kenya in partnership with the local community, the center focuses on capacity building, youth empowerment, and improving local living standards through self-reliance The Centre aim to build and strengthen the community's capacity to be self-reliant and to improve their living standards. The Centre achieves this by demonstrating how to utilize the locally available resources to develop the community Key Services & Programs • ICT & Computer Training: Provides a free community hub for local youth to learn essential digital and computer skills, enhancing their exposure to technology. • Early Childhood Education: Runs a kindergarten catering to around 86–90 vulnerable children, orphans, and children affected by HIV/AIDS, providing them with free education and daily meals. • Model Farm & Agriculture: Operates a practical agricultural unit growing crops like cassava, bananas, and potatoes. It functions as a training ground for local community groups to learn sustainable farming practices, permaculture, and agribusiness to maximize food security • Community Group Hub: Serves as a weekly meeting point for local support groups, including widow groups and agricultural cooperatives, to network and address local challenges.

Presentation of the programme

Volunteers at the Kuth Awendo Resource Centre participate in a variety of hands-on community development, environmental, and educational tasks. Programs are organized primarily by CIVS Kenya 1.Sustainable Agriculture & Permaculture • Model Farm Fieldwork: Tilling the land, planting crops such as (cassava, bananas, sweet potatoes, and indigenous African vegetables), applying manure, weeding, watering, and harvesting. • Permaculture Activities: Creating raised vegetable beds, managing organic composting, and setting up eco-friendly farm systems. • Climate Resilience: Planting trees and promoting agroforestry to improve vegetation cover, protect the water cycle, and mitigate regional environmental risks like seasonal flooding and soil droughts 2. Education & Childcare • Classroom Teaching: Assisting teachers at the Learn and Play Day Care (kindergarten) by teaching basic subjects like English, drawing, environmental science, and creative arts. • Extracurricular Activities: Organizing sports, games, and creative activities for children, as well as helping manage daily feeding program meals • Maintenance activities at the center: collecting litter, landscaping, construction repairs, cleaning the halls, slashing the weeds, painting the walls, and garbage disposal point 3. Center Maintenance • General Upkeep: Landscaping, clearing weeds (slashing), painting walls, collecting litter, and setting up structured garbage disposal points. 4. Camp Life & Domestic Support • Shared Duties: Preparing meals in shifts alongside local cooks, with accommodation and meals hosted directly on-site at the resource center.

About the accomodation

Accommodation will be at a host house in shared rooms and it is important that you have your own sleeping bag and mosquito net. During the workcamp, volunteers will get food from locally available foodstuffs and will share the responsibility of preparing the food.

About the location

In this workcamp, volunteers will have a chance to do evening walks, home visits, cultural meetings and games. During weekends, volunteers can visit the Lake Victoria, and the equator line. Volunteers will also have the opportunity for early morning visit to Kakamega Rainforest, hike on the forest hill and witness a sunrise from the forest hill. Leisure activities' costs are not included in the participation fee.