From Learning to Earning
Building Skills for the Future at Bana Mayele
At the Bana Mayele Center in Kinshasa, our ambition goes beyond providing children with a safe place to live and an education.
We want to help prepare them for what comes next.
As children grow into young adults, education needs to be accompanied by practical opportunities: the chance to discover a profession, develop useful skills, earn their first income and experience the confidence that comes from becoming more independent.
This summer, that vision has continued to take shape at Bana Mayele — through welding, professional beauty and hairdressing training, and a new water-delivery initiative that will allow young people from the center to serve their surrounding community.
12 Boys. Three Centers. Welding the New Skill.
This summer, 12 boys between the ages of 13 and 18 participated in practical welding training.
Four came from Bana Mayele, four from Bon Berge, and four from Dieu est Amour, bringing together young people from three different centers to learn side by side.
For the boys, the course is about much more than learning how to join pieces of metal.
Welding is a practical trade that can become a profession. For teenagers approaching adulthood, learning such a skill can provide an important first step toward earning their own income and building an independent future.
It also gives them something less tangible but equally valuable: the experience of learning to do something they could not do before.
A new skill creates confidence. And confidence can create ambition.
By opening the training to young people from two other centers, the opportunity created at Bana Mayele could also be shared beyond its own walls.
From our Fountain to Community Water Delivery
Another couple of youth who grew up at Bana Mayele are preparing for a very different responsibility.
SNI recently purchased an OMOTO Japanese tricycle capable of transporting up to 2.5 tons of water for the center. Three of the older boys are now working toward obtaining their motorcycle licenses so that they can operate it.
The idea behind the vehicle is simple, but its potential impact is significant.
For most of us, clean water is available by simply turning on a tap. In communities without running water, families may instead have to travel considerable distances carrying containers to bring home the water they need for drinking, cooking and washing.
Bana Mayele’s new vehicle will allow water to be transported to nearby communities in much larger quantities.
But there is another side to the project that is especially important to us.
The young men involved will have the opportunity to take responsibility for a real service. They can learn about reliability, working with customers, managing costs and income, maintaining equipment and gradually understanding what it takes to operate a small business.
The initiative therefore has the potential to achieve several things at once: bring water closer to families who need it, give young people meaningful work experience, and contribute toward greater self-sustainability for Bana Mayele.
Perhaps there is an even more important lesson within it.
The boys are discovering that the opportunities they receive can become opportunities they create for others.
A Salon That Became a Classroom
For the girls at Bana Mayele, another pathway toward independence is already taking shape.
Last year, SNI helped establish a hair and nail salon at the center. But the purpose was never simply to build and equip a salon.
The goal was to create a place where skills could be passed on.
The girls receive professional training in hairdressing, beauty and nail art, giving them the opportunity to learn practical skills while continuing their education.
Once they have developed those skills, they can join the salon after school and begin earning some of their own money.
That first income represents much more than its monetary value.
It is the experience of having a skill somebody values. Of serving a customer. Of taking responsibility for your own work. And of discovering that something you have learned can help you become more independent.
For young people who have had fewer opportunities at the beginning of their lives, those experiences matter enormously.
Preparing for Life Beyond Bana Mayele
Welding. Hairdressing. Nail art. Cooking. Catering. Gardening. Painting. Water delivery.
At first glance, these may seem like very different projects.
But they are all part of the same idea.
Our responsibility to the children at Bana Mayele does not end when they grow up.
Providing food, a safe home and an education is essential. But as teenagers approach adulthood, we also want to help answer a more difficult question:
What happens next?
We want young people leaving Bana Mayele to do so with more than memories of the support they received. We want them to leave with knowledge, practical skills, work experience and the confidence that they can create something for themselves.
And wherever possible, we want those opportunities to benefit the community around them too.
The welding course already reaches young people from three different centers. The salon can turn professional training into income. The water initiative can combine work experience with a service that improves everyday life for nearby families.
This is how support can begin to create something lasting.
From Support to Opportunity
None of these opportunities appear overnight.
A welding course needs teachers and materials. A salon needs to be built and equipped. A water-delivery vehicle needs to be purchased. Young people need training, guidance and someone willing to invest in their potential.
That is where you, our sponsors and supporters, become part of this story.
Your continued support allows us and our local partners to look beyond immediate needs and ask what will help these children five, ten or twenty years from now.
Our hope is that one day the young people learning these skills will no longer need our support.
They will be earning their own income, building their own lives and, perhaps, creating opportunities for somebody else.
