Akonye Kena Kinetic Development Foundation (formerly the Kennair Educational Foundation) is Akonye Kena’s official charity partner. The Foundation is the implementing partner for our project partners in Uganda. The partnership between Akonye Kena and the Foundation is so integrated that the decision was made to re-brand the Kennair Educational Foundation to Akonye Kena Kinetic Development Foundation.
The Goal of Akonye Kena is simple – to help youth and young adults in Uganda escape the cycle of poverty by fostering the entrepreneurial spirit. We do this by supporting local organizations who train and support youth in their quest for independence.
Each of our project partners has different needs based on their goals and their members. Akonye Kena works with the partners to develop strategies for success. In general, we focus on the following areas:
- Administrative Support & Development
- We provide financial support to our partner projects to help with the expenses of running the organizations. The amount varies as per group – from 40% of expenses to 100% of expenses. With each partnership, a strategy is developed to reduce the administrative grants over time as product sales increase, with the goal of the groups being wholly self-sufficient within 3-5 years.
- Quality Control
- One of the greatest challenges we face is quality control. We believe that our customers want to buy excellent product that has the added benefit of supporting groups in Uganda, as opposed to buying product solely because it helps a group in Uganda. We are constantly working to improve and increase our standards and it is our expectation that our project partners’ standards improve throughout the partnership.
- Quality of Instruction
- Our goal is that each project partner adopts a holistic approach to their training methods. Traditionally, skills training has focused on the technical skills, our goal is to help each partner integrate life skills, business management, health education, and other training into their programs.
- Post-Training Support
- Our goal is to mentor trainees for up to 5 years after their training, and provide them opportunities to supplement their incomes by selling their products to us. In addition, our goal is to provide graduates with the tools and equipment necessary to set up their own home-based business or community-based collective and to allow them to pay that back with product over time.
- Health Care
- In a developing country with ineffective universal health care systems people often do not seek treatment when they are sick until the illness becomes difficult to treat, simply because they can’t afford medical treatment. Our goal is to provide our projects with both access to medical care, and access to preventive care (such as distributing mosquito nets). Health care support is built into the budgets of each group we partner with.
- Child Education Support
- In countries such as Uganda educating your child is often one of the greatest economic challenges in a family. Akonye Kena has partnered with an established Uganda-based group who fund education to ensure that the children of participants get the best education possible. Educational support is built into the budgets of each group we partner with.
- Fair Trade
- Fair trade is a standard by which an organization is externally certified so that its customers are ensured that its actions, and the actions of its partners, treat all participants fairly. While we insist that all project partners abide by the standards of Fair Trade, we do not insist that they become certified. This is simply because of the costs involved in obtaining certification. As funds permit, we will help our partner projects obtain Fair Trade Certification.