kanthari Course Alumni 2017

Biju Simon

Country: India
Theme: Education:
Ether India
Biju has been working with children in Child Care Institutions (Orphanages, Shelter Homes, Children’s Homes etc.) for a long time and has experienced the lack of adequate education, empowerment and engagement activities. Through relevant and fun techniques, peer mentoring and participatory action methodology, his organisation Ether India supports children to better prepared for the future. Over the past three years, 3000+ children have been part of various activities that were organized by Ether India such as: Fun Lingua, Thenarivu, Kuttikoottam, Edu Saathi, Click and Blink with CCI, Inter-house Youth Festival-2021, Health and Hygiene and various Life Skill sessions. Additionally, with support of many well wishers, 3 libraries were set up. http://www.etherindia.org
Watch Biju's speech at http://youtu.be/esKYzAeCHUY

Rahel Zegeye Zewudu

Country: Ethiopia, lives and works in Lebanon
Theme: Support for domestic workers in Lebanon who have faced abuse.
Organisation: Mesewat

"When I started, I promised to give my life, voice and experience to help migrant workers in Lebanon. I have been one of them and have lived & seen their sufferings. Therefore I founded the organization MESEWAT with some friends in 2014. Currently we are supporting migrant workers who are stuck in Lebanon because of the very harsh political, economic climate and of course because of the Covid-19 pandemic. There are more than 250 single mothers with more than 500 children who need support to be able to return home. Most of migrant workers are jobless since many months because many of Lebanese families are jobless also and can no more afford having maids. So I am doing my best in repatriating migrant workers as many as I can with some donations, plus helping in food, rent & medical problems. It is hard, but I will keep my promise and give my everything."
http://www.mesewat.org
Watch Rahel's speech at http://youtu.be/RpU_rz_Ojug

Henry Mkare

Country: Kenya
Theme: Advocacy in regards to education
Kickstart Kilifi
As a young man wanting to gain knowledge, Henry has experienced unfair treatment. Many children in Kenya drop out of school due to boredom as the Curriculum and Pedagogy that is used doesn’t connect to them. Others drop out because their parents cannot afford the schoolfees.
This drove Henry to start an experiential learning space/hub where youths who jump out of school can have a place to learn and acquire skills that they want to learn and that are usefulin their future lives. Upon graduation from kanthari, Henry founded Kickstart Kilifi, a community-based organization that uses experiential learning to transform school dropouts into education enthusiasts. Rural out-of-school youths are equipped with skills required to succeed in the 21st century; ICT, Entrepreneurship, and Life Skills. Kickstart Kilifi has directly trained 95 out-of-school youths and worked with 200+ school children through mentorship and Book reading clubs.
http://www.kickstartkilifi.org
Watch Henry's speech at http://youtu.be/h1y8ClZx3Jk

Pannavat Veeraburinon (Palm)

Country: Thailand
Theme: Advocacy and awareness about ADHD
Hypper
Hypper empowers children and teenagers with ADHD and other mental health issues, while challenging, solving, and connecting education, families, and the society. Pannavat Veeraburinon, or better known as Palm, is part of this initiative which targets children, young people and parents who were diagnosed with ADHD or other mental health issues and are suffering from society, education and family.
http://www.thehypper.org
Watch Pannavat's speech at http://youtu.be/sSsP-wDpxBE

Emmanuel Kilaso

Country: Nigeria
Theme: Environment / agriculture
securecycle
Emanuel comes from a farmer’s family and therefore he knows farmers' most urgent needs. His concern towards the environment inspired him to start his organisation securecycle with the following goals; keeping the environment clean, generating income for poor rural farmers and to providing support to produce healthier agricultural produce. Organic waste is used to produce bio gas. Additionally he is using waste to make products such as school bags for low-income communities.
http://www.securecycle.org

Gbemisola Bamiduro

Country: Nigeria
Theme: Entreprenuership
Goal of the project: Gbemisola is an artist herself and earns an income through her art work. Over the years, she experienced that her peers don’t have the same opportunities. This is something she wants to change. Solving the problem related to unemployment and reducing the crime rate of adolescents, Gbemisola’s social venture is aimed at youth empowerment, capacity building and skill development in the area of painting and arts in general.
http://www.kipepeo.org.ng
Watch Gbemisola's speech at http://youtu.be/5uEffJ3hucU

Sherin Noordheen

Country: India
Area of interest: Advocacy and awareness in regards to prevention
Goal of the project:

Let's Live is a Mental Health Advocacy & Awareness NGO working for youth suicide prevention in Kerala since 2018.
As we started Let's Live, our focus was to spread awareness about Mental Health. Projects: Monsoon Café, Mental Health Champions
Our major focus in 2019 has been to encourage Open Conversations about Mental Health in the Monsoon Café and in The Orange Room
Next we focused on two themes. Theme 1: Media Sensitization about Mental Health.
Reasons Why Not (online sessions based on the book/series -13 Reasons Why- that discusses suicide and mental health issues in the youth)
Theme 2: Mental Health during COVID times through Survivor Series ( First-hand experience sharing of people from across the country on overcoming mental health issues and the need for resilience)
Currently we are Growing By Sharing. This year our prime focus will be to help/ assist/ mentor aspiring Mental Health Advocates to start their own Mental Health Projects in Kerala.
http://www.letslivekerala.org
Watch Sherin's speech at http://youtu.be/jY80_awds8U

Peter Adeeko

Country: Nigeria
Theme: Advocacy in regards to support
Goal of the project: Peter lost his father, an injured soldier, when he was only nine years old. His mother passed away not long after she fell ill after the loss of her husband. He was then raised by his teenage brother, who himself succumbed to alcohol abuse and became violent. Accessing education was tough. Despite these challenges, Peter managed to be educated and is now creating and distilling a message of peace and solidarity through his organization Soulace Africa. Soulace Africa helps young people to find peace and contentment through peace building training, participatory advocacy and empowerment of families affected by war. This initiative is community based and works on a scalable project that is anchored on restorative peace building and social justice. The long term vision is the establishment of Soulace Peace Village, an eco-friendly, green campus, a centre for Peace building and Nonviolence training, Advocacy and Research.
http://www.soulaceAFRICA.org/
Watch Peter's speech at http://youtu.be/xuWodrzBGg8

Gumbo Majubwa

Country: Tanzania
Theme: Environment, afforestation,water shedding
ambakofi
"When I was 24 years old the forest of my happy childhood in Bagamoyo District, on the East coast of Tanzania started to be degraded. Every time, I see trees being cut, anger haunts me so much, I could cry. Between 2005 and 2008 I studied environmental planning and management at the Institute of Rural Development Planning Dodoma Tanzania. I work at the Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership, Prawnto organization, Wildlife Conservation Society Tanzania in research work, and volunteer with Saving Africa’s Nature. In 2017 I graduate Leadership for Social Change course at kanthari India. In 2018 i founded ambakofi NGO. The organization works to create an eco-friendly farming and fishing community surrounded by regenerative agroforest and mangroves forests respectively. ambakofi works on livelihood training and to restore valuable forest land for more than 100 household families in Tanzania.
http://www.ambakofi.org
Watch Gumbo's speech at http://youtu.be/FDIybLS-514

Phorntip Limpichaisopon (Im)

Country: Thailand
Theme: Entrepreneurship
SAFETist Farm
To tackle the economic disparity for people who reside along canal housing in Bangkok, Im founded an organization called Happy Hub. Through workshops and trainings, local people gained more skills such as entrepreneurship mindset, healthy cooking, online marketing, tourism business as well as environmentally management. Two local markets with canal tours were set up and well-operated by local people so far. Since 2020, Im and her team were able to get property where they co-created an attractive space with their networks for both agriculture and local tourism. Organics veggies are grown and adventurous activities for children as well as relaxing places for visitors called SAFETist Farm.
More info : http://www.facebook.com/safetistfarm
Watch Im's speech at http://youtu.be/yFEUe0dPQX4

Joy Tony

Country: Nigeria
Theme: Education/environment
durian
Joy Tony was often told she would amount into “waste”. Now she uses “waste” as a tool for empowering women and girls in rural communities. She founded and runs 'Durian', a social enterprise that empowers rural women to become self-sufficient by providing them with the knowledge and skills needed to transform their local waste and resources into a means of livelihood. The organization trains the women to use bamboo to make crafts, cocoa pods to make skincare products, and fabric especially waste fabric to make clothing. There are also agriculture projects where women work in groups and an adult literacy class for the women. Children are not left out as they learn in an open learning space specially created for them. The organization has directly reached 70 women and 120 children. Indirectly the lives of 20,000 people were affected across 6 rural communities in Ondo state, through covid-19 as well as water sensitization projects.
http://www.durian.org.ng
Watch Tony's speech at http://youtu.be/QNfUEJPJAZ4

Danijela Veselinovic

Country: Serbia
Theme: Entreprenueurship
Wake Up Society
Danijela experienced arthritis and thus can identify with the challenges of persons with disabilities in Serbia. Danijela plans to organise creative workshops that will motivate children with a special need to be professionally oriented and learn more about design from professional designers. Focus points will be: modelling, tailoring and garment making.
http://www.wakeupsociety.org
Watch Danijela's speech at http://youtu.be/JY4L1Aq2Uxo

Alfred Okello

Country: Uganda
Theme: Disability, blind and vidually impaired
Otet
Alfred, who is blind himself, was trained by Hive Uganda Limited (an organisation that was founded by Ojok Simon, a 2012 kanthari graduate) to become a beekeeper.
Upon return from kanthari in December 2017, Alfred founded Otet Uganda, a skill training center for blind children and teenagers in Northern Uganda.
Otet offers training in Braille reading and writing skills, communication, mobility-, orientation- as well as computer-skills. The training has given the students an opportunity to gain knowledge, which has resulted in an improved self-esteem that helped them to enroll successfully into mainstream education. Farming forms another part of Otet’s training. The main goal is to empower the students so they can integrate themselves into mainstream schools and they can advocate against discrimination and social exclusion.
Watch Alfred's speech at http://youtu.be/erDus95FhJg

Lingala Naresh

Country: India
Theme: Agriculture/Education
Tharunam
Naresh was born in a village called Duginepally, which is right next to the south India’s longest river called Godavari. Young farmers in his village advised him to stay away from farming; and parents don’t like to see him in farming. Towards addressing consequential damages of the agricultural crisis, Naresh started an organization called tharunam, which is a non-profit organization working on a mission to use food as a medium for social change and make it universally accessible and affordable.
tharunam started a Food Literacy Mission, encouraging individuals to grow their own food while understanding its impacts on health, environment and sustainable economy. tharunam partners with schools to include food literacy as part of their curriculum. So far, 250 students received hands on food literacy training programs; and 800+ students from 10 schools attended various outreach programs. The 'Millet for All project. impacted 20 farmers to grow ecologically feasible and economically viable millets.
http://www.tharunam.org
Watch Naresh's speech at http://youtu.be/WQ6WHyBIcb0

Manju Sharma

Country: India
Theme: Education and advocacy
Goal of the project: Project Brief: Manju is physically disabled due to an accident she had as a flight attendant. She also experienced the difficulties that children with disabilities face. Manju has a deaf sister who struggled with her education, therefore she wants to promote inclusive education and advocate for better infrastructural facilities for the disabled.
Her dream is to establish an educational institution where disabled citizens get equal share of knowledge thus being enabled to gain better and have more suitable employment opportunities. It’s we who make the society. The stereotypes need to be challenged to bring people from the disabled and marginalised sections into the mainstream, thus contributing to economical, ethical & social growth of our society.
http://www.samatwa.org
Watch Manju's speech at http://youtu.be/g8zZy_I1LdA

Kapila Rathnayake

Country: Sri Lanka
Theme: Gender empowerment
Goal of the project: ‘Voice of Men’ is a theatrical experience about masculine and feminine culture. Through performance men and women speak out and challenge rigid gender stereotypes and they express their stories based on the stereotypical construction of their gendered self. It will create a dialog to motivate men to re-think their day-to-day practices leading to healthy relationships and not power-based relationships.
http://www.voicesofhumans.org
Watch Kapila's speech at http://youtu.be/wwJ4uJIz0Sg

Sadhana Nayak

Country: India
Theme: Gender empowerment
Sadhan
Sadhana has experienced physical and mental violence and escaped her house together with her small son. She now advocates for a society that stands for zero tolerance on domestic and workplace violence. She established SADHAN (Institute for Social Change) which is currently working with victims of domestic violence/abuse, providing counseling support, capacitating them in enterprise promotional skills and link them with existing government welfare schemes. SADHAN worksdirectly with 286 violence affected women. 54 women groups were formed in Keonjhar and Sundargarh district of Odisha state, India. 28 violence affected women are engaged in Cutting and Tailoring Unit, Puffed rice unit and mushroom cultivation activities. 73 women are linked with government schemes. Two violence affected women are now working as volunteer to provide support to women affected by violence.
Socal Media: http://www.facebook.com/SADHANISC
http://www.sadhanisc.org
Watch Sadhana's speech at http://youtu.be/3xdtes5sZG4

Anumuthu Chinnaraj

Country: India
Theme: Agriculture
snehan
When Anumuthu’s father passed away, he was not able to go to school. Therefore, he and his mom started working as a daily laborers when he was only seven years old. He worked alongside adults in the hot sun and was expected to yield the same harvest like the grown-ups.
But at 11, with a help of a Catholic Priest, he was lucky to enroll into school and he became a filmmaker. Anumuthu's heart however is with the homeless in Pondicherry, so he quite his job to start the organisation Snehan. Having firsthand knowledge of poverty, hunger, rejection, loneliness, and depression, Anumuthu's vision is to see a culture where deprived homeless people are accepted, valued, loved, and live together in dignity. More than a thousand beneficiaries have been supported with hfood, clothing, hygiene & medical support, counseling, home reunion, rehabilitation, and employment opportunities.
http://www.snehan.org
Watch Anumuthu's speech at http://youtu.be/NShLESDiYTY

Arthanas Matongo

Country: Zimbabwe
Theme: Advocacy / Stop Child marriage
Waruka
Arthanas' sisters were married off at the ages of 12 and 15. Many girls in Zimbabwe rural face child marriages and often become HIV positive. To keep young girls in schools and save them from child marriages, Arthanas started waruka, an organisation that advocates against child marriage and offers alternative opportunities.
He built a safe house for abused survivors where they recover and get psycho-social support. Additionally he started a school support program where several dropouts return back in the school.
A 2 hectare agro-nutritional garden was setup to supports the local girls. In sports, 4 of the previously marginalized girls have qualified for the world junior championships to be held in Brazil later this year. http://www.waruka.org
Watch Arthanas' speech at http://youtu.be/3WuYnNs7_w0