We envision educated youth in African communities

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world

Our History

YIDA Youth Initiative is a refugee-led and not-for-profit NGO started in 2013 as a school, the school was founded by Baraka Benedict and James Ntakiruti Gihoma. Baraka worked as a teacher, whereas James worked as the head teacher. The idea of making it an organization was then generated in 2015 and the organization was registered as a CBO in 2017 in the name of Youth Initiative for Development in Africa (YIDA). In 2023 it was registered as a regional not-for-profit organization as the YIDA Youth Initiative.

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#NTAKIRUTI James

Welcoming message from CEO

Dear Partners, supporters, and followers of YIDA, It is believed that youths are at the forefront of developing communities through resilience and commitment mostly during times of crisis like the pandemic, wars, and climate change. It is then unfortunate that most of the systems and policies in government and non-government structures at different levels do not favor or consider youth and the crisis situation worsens. Youth pass through hard times to legalize their own entities and have less engagement in decision-making that concerns them even in national planning. Still, many companies do not trust that youth can be trusted and…

5505 Children Educated

453 Trained Entrepreneurs

415 Entrepreneurs Given Seed funding

39 Refugee Children connected for scholarship

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