The Youth Café In A Mobile Clinics Meeting At The Border Police Unit Headquarters.

On Tuesday the 11th of January 2022, The Youth Café members were thrilled to be part of another pre-mobile clinic meeting held at the Border Police Unit headquarters in Kanyonyoo, Kitui County. 

The US Army officials are initiating the mobile clinic project at the Border Police Unit headquarters to promote the Border Police Unit and the work they do for the communities around for better relations and collaborations between the police officers and members of the community. 

The Youth Café will be partnering in this project to enhance the community outreach and engagement with our reach in all the 47 counties of Kenya, while the county government of Kitui will be providing resources such as more medical practitioners and medical services to promote the Kenyan medical face as a way of encouraging more people to attend the clinics. 

The test mobile clinic project will be pioneered in Kanyonyoo and conducted for two consecutive weeks, running from Monday through to Friday from the 31st of January to the 11th of February and later deployed in terrorism-stricken areas like Lamu, Wajir, and Garissa. Due to long distances to medical facilities in these areas, this project seeks to provide free and easily accessible medical services to the residents. 

The main objective of the meeting was to have extensive discussions on how to effectively run the mobile clinics from the timing, resources, and advertising. The meeting looked at, based on the timing, how realistic it would be to conduct the clinics considering the availability of the number of potential beneficiaries, medics/supporters, medical equipment, and the effective way of passing on the message about the clinics without potentially overwhelming them.

Among the eight thematic areas that The Youth Café works on, the focus of our input will be on peace and security and universal health coverage. Our partnership is purposeful in the essence that under peace and security, we aim to achieve positive contributions through active engagements and participation in the maintenance and promotion of local, regional, and international peace and security while advocating for the prevention of violent extremism through social media platforms. 

In regards to universal health coverage, we are working towards providing key education opportunities that young people need, such as access to knowledge and information on quality, affordable, and youth-friendly Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) services, to help young people stay healthy and empowered while embracing gender equality norms and demanding rights. The Youth Café will take part in the recruitment and management of youth apprentices to work alongside the expert United States and Kenyan doctors as they gain skills for future use as paramedics and present possible responsive messages and communication channels like social media/local influencers.

As The Youth Café, we will also call upon our signed local members to support us in roles such as ushering, translations, drafting of reports, facilitation of the events, designing, and distribution of flyers/posters to liaise with community members. We will also produce high-quality explainer videos, vox pops, TikTok challenges, infographics, and memes to enhance the participation of marginalized groups of youth in the mobile clinics and document the activities through documentaries, photography, impact reports, case studies, focus group discussions, and short videos for brand promotions, partnerships, and marketing. 

The Youth Café is also looking to conduct intergenerational dialogues and town hall events between youth and the government around topics such as health, security, peace, create and curate a secure health information system for beneficiaries and conduct project evaluation, pre, and post-participation interviews as well as researches on challenges and opportunities faced by local communities regarding access to health services.

The US military is going to provide the medication and their main goal is to deal with or rather treat common illnesses like diarrhea and vomiting, rashes, and provide condoms. There were further discussions on making Covid-19 vaccines available, HIV/AIDs testing services, family planning methods, and also the possibility of having the local county government provide doctors to do eye checkups, ear checkups, and dentistry services. Huge turnouts are expected at the clinics with an estimated number of up to 100 people per day.

Based on the above discussions, a follow-up meeting will be held to lay down the available resources before the official kick-off of the clinics. 

The Youth Café works with young men and women around Africa as a trailblazer in advancing youth-led approaches toward achieving sustainable development, social equity, innovative solutions, community resilience and transformative change.

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