School of Graduate Studies

By Salome Asena and Ken Waudo

The promising County Creative Arts, Residence and Empowerment (CO-CARE) Project is a dynamic initiative implemented by USIU-Africa in partnership with Across Solutions, and funded by the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE). Since its inception, CO-CARE has set its sights on impacting the creative economy landscape in Kenya by empowering young talent to turn their passion into a sustainable livelihood.

In its first cohort, the project has already made a tangible impact, successfully training 497 young creatives from Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Kiambu as piloting counties. These remarkable and talented individuals, who have shown resilience, talent, and a hunger to make their mark in industries ranging from film, music, photography, dance, theatre, and more, were formally engaged to undertake soft skills including basics of ethics, economic empowerment, business registration, laws and business education, this was also spruced up with hard skills of teamwork, creative thinking, business solutions and strategies, communication audience and partners engagement.

As we gear up for the second cohort, we are filled with anticipation and excitement, eager to see what these next trailblazers will bring to the table, as well as valuable lessons implementable for the second mentees picked from the first intake interactions.

A confident start to cohort 2

With lessons taken from the first cohort, we are now taking strides to make the second cohort have an even more impactful effect. One of the first things we did was make our recruitment process more engaging, and inclusive representation of the youth we opt to serve. Our BTL promotional campaign communication featured both male and female role models, including Daniel ‘Churchill’ Ndambuki, the renowned founder of Across Solutions, and Mombasa cohort Class President to represent male and female applicants respectively, thus embodying the diversity of talent in our creative arts program.

The recruitment phase spanned two weeks and was followed by baseline data collection, verification, vetting, and mock auditions, checking on both talents and passion held by the applicants. These keen steps were to ensure that we select only the sustainable, promising, passionate, resilient and creative entities across various creative economy genres such as theatre, music, dance, stand-up comedy, spoken word, photography, cinematography, playwrights, culinary and visual artists for the second intake of CO-CARE program

Passion on display across counties

The mock auditions have taken us across the vibrant counties of Kenya. In Kisumu, despite the scorching sun, our vetting panel for the intake activities, which included —Mr. Victor Ber the CO-CARE Program Creative Manager, Mr. Ken Waudo the CO-CARE Program Lead from Across Solutions, and Ms. Salome Asena, the CO-CARE Program Manager—who in tandem witnessed ready, raw, zealous and determined talents. From there, the team moved to Mombasa, Nairobi and Kiambu. These mock audition sessions allow us to not only assess creative potential but also witness raw passion that the program will be able to nurture with the hope of guiding these young creatives to sustainable and consistent success.

Alongside this process, Mr. Kahiro Ngamau from USIU-Africa’s Strategic Marketing and Communications Division has been documenting the journey. His video recordings serve as archival records, valuable learning tools, as well as a form of accountability, showing the world what the CO-CARE program is accomplishing in its wake to change the creative economy landscape in Kenya

A path to empowerment

The CO-CARE program stands out in its holistic approach to creative arts solutions and the challenges encountered during practicing. The successful applicants not only receive some extensive training and mentorship from seasoned professionals in the industry, but will also be linked to institutionalized teamwork, business and solutions providers like Wabunii Sacco, BRS, META, Google, KRA, KFCB, KECOBO, KNT and many more. This ensures that they can learn how to empower themselves and monetize their talents by ethical and legal means early enough to secure their financial and business future through their creative economy practices. Additionally, we are working with creative marketers and social media analytics teams to help beneficiaries align their content with market demands, turning their creativity ventures profitable in the huge evergreen social media platforms and stage.

The vision of this project is not merely to create targeted jobs, but to have an influence on policy direction in the creative economy landscape, as well as empower the youth to shape the future of Kenya with the best industry practices. Through policy conversations, briefs and research findings picked from the CO-CARE program initiative, we aim to ignite thought processes that will help shape the conversations and policy shaping of the entire national creative economy landscape.

A call to action for aspiring researchers and creatives

For the scholars and aspiring researchers among us, CO-CARE offers an unmatched opportunity to immerse yourself in groundbreaking work. Whether you’re a student writing your thesis, looking to work as a research assistant, or interested in publishing, CO-CARE provides a platform to explore, learn, and contribute. We invite all who are interested in academia, creativity, and entrepreneurship to join us on this exciting journey.

To learn more about the program and discover how you can partner with us, visit the CO-CARE webpage on the USIU-Africa website. For those eager to learn more about our impact, one of our standout beneficiaries, whose story has been featured by the CFYE, can be accessed through this link: The House of Jeffriesse and Its Institute: Merging Creativity with Mentorship through the CO-CARE Program.

Let us be the generation that sparks change—one creative at a time.