Elizabeth Aruba from Kilifi County a change catalyst.

Elizabeth Aruba during school mentorship programs.

Elizabeth Aruba carrying her collections.

 Elizabeth Aruba from Kilifi County, a change catalyst, Educational advocate and founder of Aruba Afrique collection which is a social enterprise that repurposes fabric waste materials to produce variety of bag collections, currently a high school teacher at  Viambani Secondary School making a difference in the lives of many in Kilifi County.

 She was born and raised in a village called Dzunguni in Kilifi county where she spent her tender age growing up.

At the age of 12 years, her learning was interrupted when she had to forgo her studies to help  her ailing mother raise her twin siblings.

 “My mother was suffering from tuberculosis and this was the most distressful moment of my life.” Elizabeth says she knew very little about the disease at her age.

She often got sick and I had not yet understood how terrible this illness was until it almost cost her life. I had to  nurse her, as my three elder siblings attended school, ’’ she added. 

 My most memorable moments are my primary and secondary. I met people who shaped my life to the extent of making the woman that I am today, my high school teachers Madam Bahati Gatana and the late  madam Christine Wasike from Kwale Girls High School, Kwale County . 

Elizabeth went to Kwale girls under sponsorship through Verkat Development Foundation Team, struggled to further studies because there was no means to have her join the university after completing secondary in 2013. 

“I went through tough moments in transiting to college.I joined college  twice and had to drop due to challenges in raising fees until the year 2016 after tarmacking for two and a half years,” she explains.

Elizabeth Aruba might not been known to many but she is an inspiration, a beacon of hope to dozens of children who thirst for education due to extreme poverty in Kilifi County.

 Elizabeth is the founder of The Third Hand Initiative which is a community-based organization (C.B.O.) that promotes literacy for community development through mentorship and carrying out activities geared towards education in Kilifi County making a difference to the young generation by being a bridge to transformation.

  The Third Hand Initiative  was registered in 2017  with The Office of the Sub County Social Development Officer as a Community Based Organization, the main objective being to promote literacy for community development, Tackling Sustainable Development Goal -Education as a way to eradicate poverty. 

Elizabeth’s initiative which has seen her sacrifice everyday focusing in helping girls’ access education from primary through to secondary, and they carry out various activities like community dialogue forums on need for education. Young women access to skill development program for economic sustainability, geared towards supporting education and encourage a positive school transition rate and completion rate from primary, secondary level to institutions of higher learning.

 Activities that are carried out within Kilifi County and planning to reach out beyond in the near future.

She worked closely with partners –Smiles of Hope Kenya under the stewardship of Director Elizabeth Ziro in the year 2018.

 “In 2017-2018 we secured twenty girls from Kilifi North to join Secondary who had dropped out of school due to fee challenges. We could have done more but due to lack of adequate funds, we supported a small group of the girls to transit to secondary schools,’’ she added.

 Elizabeth’s  network for funds through the County Government liaising with Ward Administrators who are always ready to assist through the social media networks which have proven to be a useful means to enable people to connect and share projects for support.

"Imarisha Msichana program” focuses on the provision of sanitary towels, underwear, and school necessities to help girls stay in school.

“When a girl has no sanitary towels during menstruation then she cannot go to school"

They have had cases where girls desperately trade sex for sanitary towels and other basic needs, this initiative helps cub such cases trying best to collect as many items as they can so that we can preserve their dignity and keep them hygienically fit. “We have successfully distributed to over ten schools in Kilifi County just to name a few, Ezamoyo Primary-Kibarani Ward, Good Samaritan School-Sokoni Ward Upendo School, Fumbini secondary, Roka secondary, Ngerenya secondary. For those who join form one, sometimes we give them a package that contains sanitary towels, underwear and body oil as a present for being under our umbrella,” she said.

They hold talks in Primary schools, secondary schools and in pen forums that they organize on different life skills such as Self-esteem, careers, teenage pregnancies, peer pressure awareness on HIV/AIDs and arising issues in their immediate society affecting their education.

Elizabeth wears many caps in society.

She is also the founder and product developer at Aruba Afrique collections which is a social enterprise that repurposes fabric waste materials to produce products such as a variety of bag collection focusing on sustainable development goals. 

She also focuses on empowerment for youth on higher learning on available educational opportunities and training of skills for self-development and employability for self-sustainability. 

This is a partnering program with Washindi Africa-Director Winnie Barawa and Smiles of  Hope  Kenya-Director Elizabeth Ziro that covered  the whole of Kilifi county in January 2018 to address the issue of transition rate of after form four because we realized that many Kilifi youths end up just at their fourth form as their highest level of education. 

“Therefore we did collaborate to empower and expose fellow youth to opportunities available in education and linking them to training designed to help needy youths develop labor market employability skills and access placements to easily assimilate into the competitive job market and make informed choices for their self-directed growth,” she said.

“We reached out to the seven sub-counties in Kilifi County where we held open forums for seven weeks in the seven sub-counties and networked for training available such as KCB Foundation, Youth Empowerment institute (CAP-YEI) organization whose Programs are based on the Basic Employability Skills and we are sourcing out for more opportunities for,” She said.

Elizabeth was among the Governor's start-up challenge finalists, a program by youth empowerment initiative (YEPI) that seeks to unleash youth entrepreneurship skills through training on sustainable business and she was the winner of youth Entrepreneurship Summit 2019.

She is currently among the young women in the Washa program by Akili Dada that supports young women community leaders who are solving global problems through local initiative.

What inspired you to start this organization?

Having been a leader, I realized that girls go through a lot of challenges in accessing education and it ignited the zeal for me to bridge the gap. "I know problems are endless and we cannot solve problems what we can do is only our best and reach out to where we can best."

My life challenges, I got the push to serve my society specifically to develop my community in embracing education because everyone who embraces education gets liberated not because of employment but education equips one with skills for sustainability I relate my challenges to any other child out there so by sharing my life with others it becomes a motivation to others in believing in their goals and working hard to achieving them.

The high rate of low school completion and the transition is contributed mostly to school dropouts. Adolescent girls and boys face so many challenges.

 My community having been a victim of similar circumstances. As a youth, I wanted to be a change accelerator and therefore decided to start up an organization to tackle these challenges hence come up with solutions and ideas to groom a better society through peer to peer mentorships to the young stars and develop educational projects that champion education

My service to the society started way back in high school, from time to time we would visit children centers, the first having been Minto Children’s home in Likoni and from there I developed the zeal to do more and more our visits always had positive impact.

I approached friends whom I shared with my ideas and along I got those whom we walked the same path and finally in 2016, I was able to register the organization with the help of my team. I often use the social media networks to do my campaigns in terms of support in my projects and the response is always positive apart from a few setbacks which I believe setbacks are a normal path into the foundation of success.

Networking has helped me a lot with my activities; the circle of friends you create from engagement into different friends’ organization develops your thinking and way of doing things more efficiently.

 Any challenges 

Lack of funds to facilitate movement and activities, this is one of the major challenges because my activities are fully voluntary and sometimes when you request for volunteers they expect payment of services they provide. So far I do a production of items such as book dividers, caps, wrist bands and t-shirts which are sold for profit to facilitate movement from time to time.

Discouragement, sometimes I would face discouragement from friends and those around me that it is a hard path to follow having to mind other peoples' lives each time and the cost that comes along it. 

But I take discouragements as motivation into perfecting the roles that come along because I learn so many lessons from interacting with different people and implementing

Lack of funds to pay volunteers who take part in activities some do expect pay of services rendered and to challenges to facilitate logistics.

Lack of funds to carry out projects that require lump-sum amounts of money sometimes I am forced to drop some due to limited funds or lack of it.

Funds to support and stand-in for children who desire to continue with schooling.

What advice can you give to the youth

The future of our country lies in the hands of the youth; it is the youth who can create an impact on building their lives and country. The youth needs to know their role in building the nation and the development of sustainable goals.

Politically- youth should participate in taking up political positions since they are young and aggressive into pushing for growth and development of a better nation and be united into voting in leaders with visualized minds.

Economically-Youth contributes largely to the economic growth of a nation. The future is brighter because more youth are taking up technical training, agricultural training and entrepreneurial creating the world of self-employment. Coming together in developing training for youth for self-independence and youth to youth talks is lightening up young minds into focusing on the better side of life doing away with the notion that everyone who acquires education must be employed. 

To add on I am also an entrepreneur; this creates my side hustle. It is all about providing an economical solution to the needs of the people in your environment.

Socially-The future of the Kenyan child including youth is taking a new shape as we desire to create societies that embrace positive change and diverse cultures for a harmonious society.

And understanding the rights of each individual such as education for girls and the social standing of a woman in the society. I hope that with time women shall be liberated fully.

Goals have no limits of age you can start at any time when you feel that it is the right time to pursue your passion, as long as you are enthusiastic about something no matter how long it may take, with good strategic plans you can get there. 

All that is needed is patience because nothing comes easy; it needs sacrifice and critical thinking to materialize your goals.

You have the chance to develop yourself and don’t give up at any point, the best way to discover yourself is creating time for your-self and meditating upon your life, what is it that you want? What does it take to get there? You get yourself answered.

 Life is about taking chances when you fail you shall then know you had actually tried and vice versa because as for me I am also an entrepreneur.

Failure builds us, sometimes I formulate projects that backfire, sometimes we might not experience success throughout but that does not mean that we quit. Failure builds us and creates opportunities for us to be better, in ones' passion quitting should never be an option. One of Martin Luther King's quotes that inspires me is, 'do not quit trying if you cannot fly run, if you cannot run walk if you cannot walk crawl but you have to get there'. 

Discover the purpose of your passion that way you never shall have proper strategic plans on how you can work towards it.

Any Achievement

Early this year I was invited as one of the guests -youth mentor at the first Youth Empowerment institute graduation for Kilifi County that has 37 centers in Kenya.

Several times, I have been invited to lulu FM radio station in their media youth empowerment program to hold a discussion in addressing issues that concern youth and development which has given me good exposure and experience discussing issues on one with listeners and helping them in their development through the exchange of thoughts.

I have had interview sessions at Mwangaza Magazine which is one of Kenyan’s developing online magazines in line with writers' guide Kenya.

Through project " Imarisha Msichana", I have successfully helped 50 needy students to join secondary who are still in session through my organization and our partners some of whom had been our mentees in their previous schools. 

We have been able to reach out to support girls in accessing sanitary towels and underwear which is one of the necessities for school  girls.

In 2019, the organization was able to support two community schools- Mtondia Children Development Center and UpendoSchool  with  story books to enable children from around the community practice learning to enhance literacy development.

we have successfully reached out to about three hundred youths and admitted over one hundred students both boys and girls for short term training with KCB foundation and CAPYEI- a youth empowerment program that entails equipping youth with skills for employability and self-development for the achievement of sustainable development goals.

For the past two years, I have worked with developing organizations such as All for Books, Wangari- The Story Teller, Mwangaza Magazine, Washindi Africa, Smiles of Hope Kenya, Youth Senate, CAPYEI (Youth Empowerment Programs) and Safisha Dada Initiative just to name a few who have similar objectives for community growth and development.

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