By Nicholas Ongolo

My Name is Nicholas Ongolo. I come from Ndhiwa Constituency in Homa Bay County within the Republic of Kenya. I have been a youth leader in various organizations and this is a journey that I begun in 2013 with an aim of transforming my community and to impact lives of the less privileged and the minority group of people.
I am the co-founder of Ndhiwa Social Accountability Network (NSAN), a youth-led social accountability community based organization in Ndhiwa Constituency. The organization focuses on issues of Social Accountability, Economic Literacy, Human Rights, Gender Mainstreaming, Advocacy and Campaigns. Through the partnership with Actionaid International - Kenya, we have been able to address so many governance issues and this year we marked 5 years of existence. The network has helped me develop individually and it has also helped me find a better platform to address governance and human rights issues within Ndhiwa Constituency and Homa Bay County.

Currently I volunteer with a National Youth Serving Organization called Youth Governors - Kenya (YGK) as the Volunteer Youth Governor of Homa Bay County and through this organization i have managed to mentor over 300 students for the past 7 months. I have also developed a petition on youth affairs which I forwarded to the County Government of Homa Bay and am still doing follow ups to ensure our concerns are addressed to its logical conclusion. The organization has opened doors to me and recently I got a chance to discuss issues of the youth in KTN TV Kenya (mainstream media) and Lolwe TV Kenya (luo community TV). Through this platform I advocate for gender issues, disability mainstreaming, governance, mentorship to students, human rights issues and other community development needs.

YALI RLC East Africa has impacted a lot in me and some of the study areas such as design thinking and 7 habits of highly effective people will assist me further in addressing community-based issues and for personal development. i look forward to registering a community based organization that will focus on development and empowerment.