At Neema, you’ll often hear us talk about our three pillars of restoration, education, and transformation. It’s based on the idea that restoring the dignity of a young woman — who comes from a background of extreme poverty and potential abuse at the hands of a patriarchal system — and educating her leads to transformation not only in her life but in the life of her family and community as well. And we seek to accomplish these three pillars through skills training, counseling, and discipleship.

But a lesser-known aspect of Neema involves our livelihood training in which Neema’s Kenyan staff — in both formal and informal settings — teach our students some of the basics of life. Some of our students come from such trauma induced backgrounds that they have a hard time smiling when they first come to Neema. And some of them may not even know what “normal, everyday life” looks like or how aspects of it are conducted. So our staff takes the initiative to not only teach these young women a trade so they can provide for themselves, but also prepares them for “doing life” once they leave Neema.

One tangible way this happens is through weekly catering classes. Neema’s resident chef, Enoch, is passionate about food, and not just any food, but healthily prepared foods. So he’s taken it upon himself to once a week teach the Neema students how to prepare and cook a variety of foods. Some weeks are theory — in the classroom learning — and some weeks are practical — hands-on learning. During the week I was in Kenya, Enoch was doing a practical teaching on making scones. Don’t be fooled. I’m not talking about pastry scones filled with sugar, icing, and the like. The “scones” Enoch was teaching the students how to make were a round, breadlike biscuit with bits of vegetables incorporated into the mixture (things like carrots, squash, and peppers).

On Friday afternoon, the second and third year students donned their white aprons and French inspired chef hats, pulled the oven out into the courtyard, and started preparing the dough. After getting it mixed to the right consistency, they rolled it out on a wooden table to the correct thickness, and Enoch showed them how to cut out sections into a round shape by simply using a cup, much like one would with a cookie cutter. Once the scones were cut, they were placed on trays, brushed lightly with oil, and put into the oven. The oven is not a conventional electric oven like we’re used to in the West, but a coal-fired oven with two round openings on the bottom where one foot deep metal buckets filled with simmering coals sit to keep the oven warm. After about 20-30 minutes, the scones were ready, and they were delicious.

For most of these young women, growing up with a variety of foods was a non-reality. Limited income and limited resources means limited variety. But with the skills they’re learning that will make them employable, the options open up somewhat, which is why Enoch is so passionate about teaching them how to prepare a variety of healthy foods. These skills go beyond the young woman and extend to her children and future children, who now will grow up with better food choices than that of their mother, and potentially to her family and community as well. And again, it’s about providing her with life skills she may never have had access to before.

Another thing our Neema staff does is English language training. The national language of Kenya is Swahili. And within different tribes are also different languages. So many of our students come to Neema fluent in Swahili, fluent in their local tribal language, and with a limited working knowledge of English (some better than others). But a good portion of the Kenyan population is able to converse in English, and in places like Nairobi, which is a diverse city with people from all over the world, having an understanding of English makes navigating the diversity easier. And so our staff, Kenyans themselves, believe it’s important for the students to grow in their English proficiency.

So once a week, they hold English classes for our students. While I was in Kenya, Neema’s Program Director, Winnie, (who went to college in the States) was teaching the first year students, and while I was poking around, they were reading silently to themselves from book written in English. Winnie also brings in a friend of hers, Mercy Mukami, who is an English teacher, and she was teaching the second year students. If I remember correctly, she was teaching them how to conjugate verbs or something similar. The point is, it’s not just conversing in English that the students are being taught, but truly learning to read and write so they walk away from Neema with yet another skill that will help them succeed in life.

It would be easy at Neema to create a “factory system” where students come in for a year, quickly learn a set of skills, and then go back out into the “real world.” The number of young women that come through our program would certainly be higher. But what I love about Neema’s mission is that it isn’t just about creating change, but about creating lasting change — change that will one day help to transform culture. But in order to do this, a “get in, get out, get on with life,” mentality doesn’t work. True, for some things, there is a time and place for this. But not at Neema. Because in order to create lasting change, true transformation has to occur, and that takes time. It takes time to heal from past trauma; it takes time to know deep in your being that you’re loved just the way you are; and it takes time to acquire the skills needed to live life and live it well. And that’s the type of change our staff in Kenya is committed to seeing occur.

Creating a Lasting Change Through Livelihood Training