1. Vision

To contributes to a society in which children and youth enjoy full opportunities for development and live a dignified life.

We achieve this by empowering vulnerable children and youth through capacity building, mobilization, advocay and supporting the target groups achieve change through group processes

2.        Target groups/Beneficiaries.

KIVIDEA activities benefit primarily two groups:

Children from the age of 4 – 14, with special concern for orphans and children living under difficult circumstances (most vulnerable children);

Youth and adolescents aged 15 – 30 in school and out-of school, in rural and urban settings.

KIVIDEA helps children through a nursery centre where children living under difficult circumstances are cared for. The children attend pre-school classes, receive daily meals and enjoy other recreational (games & play) activities. The children are selected through street and other community leaders (religious, associations and other people). A program to support Most Vulnerable Children (MVC) was introduced in 2012 and currently support 60 children in 6 wards. This program also builds the capacity of local ward MVC committees to provide care and support to the children and their families.

Youth and adolescents participate in KIVIDEA through local teams of peer educators in target wards/villages who mobilize and educate other youth in their areas, and help initiate and manage you-led actions/initiatives which Kividea supports. Youth participate in the initiation, planning and implementation of activities at the youth main center in Kigoma town, and in their village teams. Currently KIVIDEA is active in three rural wards and villages of Ilagala, Nguruka, Kazuramimba and Nyanganga; and all 19 wards of Kigoma-Ujiji Municipality.

3.        Organizational structure and management: Organs and competences.     

KIVIDEA has a general members’ assembly and a Board of governance. The general assembly of members meets once every year for regular meetings, and anytime in extra-ordinary meetings. The Executive Director is the Secretary of the Board, composed of 5 members and elected in the general assembly for a 4 year term. Board members are elected for their academic qualifications, personal integrity, experience and or commitment to the organization’s goals.

The Board is responsible for the general management of the organization and gurantees accountability and integrity in the organization.

The Board employs the other Executive Director, and approves the employment of all other executive staff upon proposition by the Executive Director.

4.       Mission, objectivies of the organization

Kividea Mission

• To empower marginal children and youth for active participation in society;
• To mobilize, organize and support marginal youth achieve change through group processes.

KIVIDEA aims at improving the social and economic status of children and youth in Kigoma. This is achieved through the following objectives:

• Provision of functional education and development of skills for children and youth;
• To provide basic care and educational assistance to orphans and most vulnerable children,
• To promote entrepreneurship among the youth to fight poverty enhance their self-reliance;
•  To contribute to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, through behavior and attitude change among youth and adolescents.

 5.       Financial management and institutional audit.

KIVIDEA has a long history and good collaboration  of working with international organizations and the government. We have accumulated sufficient experience in financial management and have maintained so far our credibility with our partners in that matter.

KIVIDEA produces annual financial reports that are auditied by LYUMBA & CO. CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS. P.O.POX 1048 KIGOMA. We also conduct specific audit exercises to suit individual donor needs.

6.         Staff capacity.

KIVIDEA has a core staff of 15 people, comprising of 3 executive staffs, 7 program staffs and 4 support staff. Among these, 11 are full-time staffs and 4 are volunteers.

7.         What is the specificity (core competence) of your organization?

The core competence of KIVIDEA is in working with youth, marginal youth, rural youth or those in less resourced areas. We have given special consideration to adolescent girls, who enter the reprodutive age. We have developed expertise in youth mobilization, education and training, and organization of psychosocial care and support. We have special expertise in Life Skills education and Peer Education methodology. 

Since 2011, KIVIDEA has also expanded its expertise working with most vulnerable children. Beside having a competent staff of social workers, field staff have also received trainings in skills for parasocial workers to manage community programs for MVC, offering psychosocial support, care and services.

8.        List of the current programmes of the organization/Activities

KIVIDEA activities are channelled through its 2 major departments: the Child Department and the Youth Department.

In summary, activities under each department are as follows:

1. THE CHILDREN UNIT:

Activities include:

• A nursery school for 70 orphans and most vulnerable children of pre-school age
• Child recreation (games & plays)
• Provide education to guardians and parents to strengthen family care for our beneficiary children.
• Orphans and MVC Support program in 6 wards in Kigoma urban and rural.

2. THE YOUTH UNIT:

Activities include:

• Training of peer educators and youth mobilization;;
• Life Skills trainings for youth and adolescents in school and out-of-school;
• Vocational training: including Tailoring, home gardening, agricultural, poultry keeping, Carpentry and other;
• Recreational activities for youth, which cover Sports (Football, Netball and volleyball), music/dancing and theater arts;
• HIV/AIDS prevention and care: including youth peer education and counseling, voluntary testing, and case referral;      
• Prevention of drug abuse and psychosocial support to youth with addiction and other mental health cases;
• Youth reproductive health and rights; provision of reproductive health education and services to youth; advocacy for youth reproductive rights;
• Support to youth Income Generating Activities: support the starting and financing youth small business projects; provide accompaniment for youth projects; promote youth agriculture through development of an irrigation scheme at Nyanganga village;
• Youth Environmental education and advocacy (charcoal campaign, improved stove campaign, reforestation, etc.)

9.        Working methods or approaches to working.

The major strategy of KIVIDEA is to work directly with youth at grassroots level, through the peer-led campaigns and mobilizations in schools and out of schools. We work with youth based projects as well as organization based projects. Through mobilization meetings, problems that face youth are identified and ways to work on them are agreed upon. The support of KIVIDEA and the contribution of the youth themselves are defined and a line of work is set.

For organizational projects, youth are involved in identification of needs, the planning of actions and the realization of the activities too. We implement most of our activities for youth by the means of peer facilitators. The trained Youth Peer facilitators serve as the primary work force in the field.

10.      Instruments for team and organizational development.

We conduct special meetings in the form of group discussions with staff and board members to brainstorm on important organizational issues and agree appropriate intervention. The organization also uses the meetings with youth center committees to gather information that enable us to address key challenges within the organization. Most of these meetings are steered by the Program Manager who is the a general coordinator of all projects and programs.

Although we have not yet applied regular standard staff evaluation, we do conduct participatory program evaluations with program staff and beneficiaries, and all observations are discussed in appropriate executive and board meetings. In this way, we see ourselves as an organization that is ever learning, self-critical and open to criticism.

11.     Dealing with Internal conflicts. 

Conflicts do arise in KIVIDEA, but we have so far been able to contain them successfully. Conflicts are dealt with at three levels: the executive committee, the Board of governance and the Members’ Assembly. The executive committee will meet to address the conflict if related to staff members or people under specific programs. Problems related to members and senior staff are directly addressed by the Board of Governance before they are submitted to Members’ Assembly.

12.   Strengths and challenges of the organization.

After over 12 years or so of existence and working with youth, we believe that one of our strengths lays in our acceptability among the youth and the capacity to mobilize them. Another strength is our ability to maintain a large presence in the rural areas of Kigoma district, which gives us enough power to mobilize and influence actions for and with youth. This is readily recognized even by the local government authorities, at all levels. On the other hand, we have a strong community support, from both public authorities and other community leaders.

Youth involvement in our programs is no less a strength. We do not speak for the you, we let them take to lead for their own actions and give them both voice and choice. This has been the key to the success of our programs with youth in the region.

Lastly, we are a learning organization, open to criticism and advice; we maintain a high level of self-criticism for the purpose of change.

But we do have challenges as well. First, as an organization we have not attained financial sustainability to ensure the continuity of our programs and activities, which are generally funding based. We have not yet been able to develop strong internal sources of funds, therefore we do not have adequate funding for our core/institutional costs. Moreover, despite our valuable experience in the field, many of our core staff still need to be developed in terms of programmatic capacities.

13.   Achievements and lessons learnt.

KIVIDEA proudly sees its achievements in the light of the Millenium Development Goals. The summary below gives a light on this:

• Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger:

We have provided about 150 youth with skills (vocational skills) to enable them to be economically productive; facilitating them to start income generating groups and support their initiatives with capital funds up to 8 million TZS. We have initiated a village irrigation scheme (2010-2011) intended to help over  300 youth engage in market agriculture activities. With support from the World Food program, we have provided adequate nutrition (2 meals a day) to about 70 each year for over 10 years now.

• Achieving universal primary education:

We have a pre-school and day care centre that takes in between 50 - 70 children, among whom are orphans and vulnerable children in Kigoma town every year, and we have provided financial and material support to over 80 children to access primary and secondary school in the last 8 years. Since January 2013, we are supporting another 60 Most vulnerable children to access primary,  secondary and vocation education in Kigoma rural and urban.

• Promoting gender equity and empowering women:

We have so far reached as many as 8,260 adolescents and youth through the youth centers and school-based life skills and sexual and reproductive health programs. Between 2007 - 2009, our radio programs provided awareness on sexual and reproductive health and rights to about 70% of a population estimated at 1,679,109 people. Since 2012, we are engaged in safe motherhood advocacy project to reduce the toll of maternal death due to unsafe abortion and post-partum haemorrhage, and to promote access to contraception. We are also engaged in campaigning against gender violence and promotion of reproductive rights. Our Youth Empowerment project has helped 55 female youth victims of early motherhood to learn skills, regain self-value and become economically productive.

• Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases:

Using peer education, stepping stones and other community education methodologies we have provided awareness and training on HIV/AIDS and STIs to adolescents and youth in-schools and out-of-schools, and to other community stakeholders in urban and rural districts of Kigoma region. Peer education and counseling reach to about 60 adolescents and youth who attend the center daily. Since July 2012, we provid 60 MVC’s and 295 relatives with access to basic health care by funding Community Health insurance schemes in 6 administrative wards. We have also conducted malaria information and education in 34 villages in Kigoma rural over 2 years in collaboration with PSI/COMMIT between 2010 and 2012.

• Ensuring environmental sustainability:

In Kigoma town, we mobilize youth and educate them on environmental promotion and urban hygiene and sanitation. About twice every year, youth engage in community volunteer projects at hospital, clinics and on streets to maintain good environmental sanitation. Our school based life skills education promotes environmental volunteering among primary and secondary school children and adolescents in 45 chools, in partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute – Roots and Shoots programs.

 14.   Evaluation

We conduct both project based and organizational annual evaluations and audits. However, organizational evaluations and audits were not always done in very standard way in the past. Project based evaluations and audits are done as part of specific projects and have involved independent evaluators. As an organization, we are committed to ensuring that are efficiently accountable and transparent to our partners.

15.   Cooperation with other partners.

KIVIDEA works well with local and national civil society organization. We are part of key regional networks, namely Kigoma-Kasulu NGO Network (KIKANGONET), Kigoma-Ujiji NGO Network (KIUNGO), Kigoma Aids Control Network (KACON), and the Tanzania Safe Abortion Advocacy Network (TSAAN) which is a new initiative of the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR). KIVIDEA is currently working to expand its membership to other national networks and consortiums of NGOs for youth and development.

We also have a strong copperation with the Kigoma Municipal authorities, Kigoma district council authorities and local leaders. We use government human resources and expertise in our programs when necessary (such as training facilitators, irrigation/agriculture texperts, health professionals, etc.) and receive the needed administrative support.

16.   Source of funds or other donors supporting the organization 

KIVIDEA draws its funds from various sources as follows:

• Grants from International and national organizations and public institutions;
• Members contributions;
• Sell of services;
• Income generation activities initiated by the production Unit;
• Donations from good-willed individuals and social groups.

Funding agencies that have supported KIVIDEA work to date include:

• UNICEF: since 2003 for construction of KIVIDEA Youth centre and funding of the Youth and Adolescents HIV and Life Skills project;
• ACTION AID: HIV/AIDS education for prevention in Kigoma rural;
• FOUNDATION FOR CIVIL SOCIETY: Youth education on youth policy and national  strategy for poverty eradication;
• EMBASSY OF GERMANY: construction of nursery school classes;
• WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME: since 2002 provision of food supply for the nursery chool;
• TANZANIA JAPAN FOOD COUNTERPART: funding of Karagho Irrigation scheme;
• TANZANIA DEVELOPMENT TRUST UK: material support (furniture) for Kividea youth center, renovation of youth centre building, renovation of nursery school, funding for child play ground, and equipment support for a catering course;
• GERED GEREEDSCHAP GERNANY: material support (vocational tools) for Kividea youth center;
• Terre des Hommes Schweiz: youth empowerment and OVC support in Kigoma municipal and Kigoma rural, and core funding.

17. Plans for the future:

Our plans for the next 3 years are detailed in the 3-year Strategic Plan 2014 – 2016.