According to the International Labour Organization, Kenya’s unemployment rates as of April 2023 are 5.5%, which has been steadily increasing since 2016 (2.8%)1. Numerous reasons for this increase have been identified, including a decline in Kenya’s overall economy, climate change, and population increase2. However, unemployment amongst young people between the ages of 15 and 24 is most prominent, with 13.35% of the young workforce seeking employment to no avail as of July 20233. Sr. Georgette Sawadogo of the Donum Dei Missionary Sisters (DDS), a graduate of the HESA program (November 2022) and newly accepted doctoral student to ASEC’s Scholarship program, has been actively working for 22 years to fight against unemployment in Kenya’s youth.
Sr. Georgette is currently director of her mission at St. Therese Vocational Training Centre and Roussel House in Nairobi, Kenya. St. Therese Vocational Training Centre reaches approximately 1,500 students and creates approximately 200 jobs each year for young adults, placing a special emphasis on young mothers. With the development of larger hospitality spaces, Sr. Georgette’s mission will be able to host 700 students at a time for conferences and training by December 2023. Here, she utilizes her understanding of leadership and hospitality to further the concept of social entrepreneurship.
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Students outside of St. Therese Vocational Training Centre
In her own words, social entrepreneurship is “creating jobs, reducing poverty, and generating revenue to assist sisters in their apostolates,” as well as “promoting independence and sustainable growth.” She says that her motivation is to “address issues such as unemployment and underemployment in Africa.” Sr. Georgette exemplified this during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she identified the social and communal needs resulting from unemployment and poverty. She continued to pay workers throughout the pandemic and provided approximately 300 families with food and resources.
When asked how she planned to utilize knowledge acquired from her HESA studies, Sr. Georgette says, “It is not common for sisters to talk about social entrepreneurship. Some of our activities are enterprises and we need to manage them as professionals.” Sr. Georgette is the fourth doctoral student to have been selected for ASEC’s Scholarship program. She plans to conduct research in her PhD program on sustainability and social entrepreneurship in Catholic sisters, stating that “as [Catholic] congregations, we need to find ways to sustain our missions.”
- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?locations=KE
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/causes-unemployment-among-youth-kenya-fanice-jebet-ayabei#:~:text=Rise%20in%20population%2D%20With%20the,jobs%20available%20for%20all%20people.&text=The%20education%20system%20in%20Kenya,for%20contributing%20to%20youth%20unemployment
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/812147/youth-unemployment-rate-in-kenya/#:~:text=The%20youth%20unemployment%20rate%20in,of%20the%20youth%20unemployment%20rate
