POWERFUL STORIES

The Toolkit Skills and Innovation Hub

Kenya’s Toolkit is a digitally innovative social enterprise focused on skilling youth and linking them to employment or entrepreneurship opportunities. Toolkit’s robust skilling combines life and employability skills, digital skills and a technical trade.

Investment in energy access creates work in marginalised communities, where energy poverty often exists alongside high unemployment. With the right support, people can find jobs in a growing sector while also powering up their neighbours. TTI delivers technical skills but also the ‘soft skills’ – from business management to digital literacy – needed for a decent career. Crucially, it works closely with industry, making sure training matches the needs of the private sector.

Kenya will need at least 30,000 solar technicians by 2025 – and Toolkit his helping to build that much-need workforce. Support for training can meet rising demand and create opportunities for marginalised groups.

Anne: “I applied and got picked"

In Nandi County, it has helped trainee Anne Njeri find work with corporate partner BBOXX. She says: "I had to drop out of college while pursuing a certificate course in electrical installation because I could not afford fees. When I learnt about the Toolkit programme through a friend, I applied and got picked.”

She installs and fixes solar energy systems

Now she travels between communities on a motorbike provided by BBOXX, installing and fixing solar energy systems. She says: “I am happy that I get to discourage the community from using kerosene lanterns and encourage them to adopt solar as an alternative."