Introducing Yokaenso:
A Dream to Build an Ecologically Sustainable Community in Tanzania
Dear Steemians,
For our first fundraising post, we here at Project Giving are excited to introduce to you Yokaenso, a small non-profit organization based in Mwanza, Tanzania, which seeks to promote environmental conservation and create youth employment & empowerment in their local community.
As a brief reminder, 100% of all rewards from this post will be given directly to the Yokaenso charity in order to facilitate the important work they do to improve their local community. This post will outline both what the Yokaenso charity does and how their work could be bettered thanks to the help of you and the Steemian community.
How did Yokaenso start?
Yokaenso was founded in 2017 by 31 year old local community member Emmanuel Bujashi in the Tanzanian lakeside city of Mwanza. To uncover how he began this charity, it is first important to share a little bit of Emmanuel's life story till now...
Emmanuel (pictured right) was born in a small rural village near Mwanza in 1986. By the age of 6, he had lost both his parents and was thrust into a life of uncertainty without a home or close family to care for him.
Like thousands of other 'street-children' in the city of Mwanza, he was forced to contend extreme hardships and accept the lack of opportunities or services provided by the government to help him escape the poverty cycle that had become his reality.
Luckily though, Emmanuel found help through an NGO (Non-Government Organization) based in Mwanza called Street-wise Africa which brought him into contact with teachers, social workers and other community members providing him with a new family and importantly, the chance to complete his primary and post-primary education.
Thanks to this kindness of others and fundraising, Emmanuel was given the opportunity to travel to Nairobi, Kenya and pursue higher education. However, instead of pursuing private sector employment, Emmanuel decided to study social work, community development and psychology counselling with the dream of returning to his local community and using his skills to help others escape poverty and succeed.
Taking in all the lessons which his life had provided him with, Emmanuel returned home to Mwanza and started Yokaenso with the goal of improving and empowering the lives of his fellow community members, while also finding innovative ways to improve the ecological conservation of the area.
What does Yokaenso do?
First and foremost, Yokaenso improves youth empowerment and opportunity by drafting young community members to both help run and participate in the actions of the charity. In this way, volunteers can gain essential business administration skills, project management skills, and experience working for a registered NGO.
Yokaenso has identified youth unemployment, lack of food security and the lack of recycling in the area as three extremely consequential problems facing their local community. With a current team of 12 youth volunteers from the area, Yokaenso seeks to overcome these societal and environmental problems by implementing the following 4 projects.
1. Environmental protection
The proliferation of plastic waste is a serious problem around much of Africa. In Tanzania, many smaller rural communities get no assistance from the government for waste removal and for this reason, plastic waste is either burnt or discarded on the streets.
To tackle this problem, the Yokaenso team has started a waste collection program where volunteers travel around their local community with a large cart and collect plastic and organic waste from different households. The plastic waste which is collected is then recycled properly instead of being burnt or discarded. Meanwhile, Yokaenso turns the organic waste which it collects into high-quality fertilizer which can be used in local farms.
2. Paper bag distribution
Tanzania is still a national user of plastic bags which only adds to the waste problem in the country. To improve this issue, Yokaenso distributes re-usable paper bags to local community members which are environmentally friendly and disposable.
3. Creating fertilizer and a community farm
As previously mentioned, the organic waste which Yokaenso collects is used to create high-quality fertilizer which is extremely helpful for to increase local food production.
Keeping to its goal of improving food security in the area, Yokaenso eventually seeks to build a community farm which will be used to distribute locally produced food-stuff to the community. Due to unreliable access to food in Tanzania, especially during the dry months of the year, having increased community food production is an essential part of improving people's access to food.
4. Holding workshops on food and environmental security
Yokaenso believes that education is key to positive development. To facilitate this, Yokaenso members hold numerous community workshops on entrepreneurship and business management.
During these workshops, Yokaenso also expresses the importance of sustainable living as well as sharing easy ways in which local community members can live cleaner, healthier and safer lives.
Yokaenso: in the words of the founder
"Yokaenso is the most effective and efficient response to environment conservation, recycling, food security and hunger management. It will help to increase awareness of environment conservation and availability of food in market while facilitating food manufacturing and storage in industry. It will also help to change community mindset on conservation and encourage them to see self-employment as a viable source of income.
Yokaenso will open door for students from all over Tanzania for internships, earning experiences and skills in different fields. This it will help them to gain experience and exposure. The project will sustain itself due to that its income generating project/business and ultimately will help in poverty alleviation among educated, uneducated and the vulnerable youths."
- Emmanuel Bujashi, Yokaenso founder
How you can help Yokaenso
Using the power of the Steem blockchain, all you need to do to help Yokaenso vote on this blog post. 100% of all rewards collected over the next 7 days will then be sent directly to Yokaenso using 
Read how we ensure that all funds received are donated here:
Here at Project Giving, we really believe that every little bit can help when it comes to donations. To showcase this, Yokaenso has put together a list of what can be done with donations to their project:
- $5 - to buy new office filing system
- $10 - to buy new gloves for waster collectors
- $20 - to buy 8 grass slashers (for compost/fertilizer)
- $30 - to buy t-shirts for staff
- $40 - to buy gumboots for staff who are working on waste collection
- $50 - to buy office furniture
- $100 - to buy new wheelbarrows for waste collection
- $200 - to pay for office rent
- $250 - to rent vehicle for one month to assist with waste collection
To help Yokaenso achieve these target, make sure to donate by upvoting below!
About Project Giving
Project Giving is the Steem Blockchain's first fully accountable Non-Government Organization (NGO) which will bring financial resources and exposure to local charitable initiatives around the world. Through funding these initiatives, we will empower them to make influential social development in their local communities and surrounding environment, all thanks to the power of the Steem Blockchain.
About our sponsors
Project Giving is driven by the influence of the Steemian Community. We would like to personally thank our two Steemit based sponsors who will be donating a significant community upvote towards Yokaenso. If you run a Steemit community and would like to also become a sponsor, please contact 
@SndBox is a Steem incubator for creatives and communities, they have been extremely important to the development of Project Giving which was in part created through their 2018 #SndboxSummerCamp. @Sndbox is continuously developing, finding or supporting amazing projects on the blockchain and also produce incredible daily content.
@Fundition is a next generation, decentralized, peer-to-peer crowdfunding and collaboration platform. Using the power of blockchain technology, @Fundition has established itself as leader in bringing the idea of decentralized crowdfunding to mainstream users both on and off of Steemit. The Project Giving team is extremely glad to have @Fundition as one of our sponsors.
