The spread of COVID-19 pandemic across continents has not only affected the socioeconomic functioning of the society but to a large extent destabilized psychosocial and cognitive development of a people. Youth being the majority of the world’s population are the worst hit by the pandemic due to evident disruption of learning and employability programs. Consequently, there is unprecedented upsurge in gender based violence, crime and general state of unruliness within families. The net effect of this is that youth from vulnerable backgrounds and dysfunctional families bear the brunt.

SOS Children’s Villages Kenya has launched an online youth mentorship program dubbed youthl inks that will virtually reconnect youths with mentors who will provide them with professional support that will enable them regain confidence and dignity in life.

Youthlinks is hosted on Workplace, the private social network of Facebook where members can interact in a similar way as Facebook. Under this platform, mentees are linked with corporate volunteers and SOS staff who conduct virtual courses and share learning materials with mentees, upload videos and where possible provide mentees with a virtual live tours of typical work place.

The program currently in the piloted phase reaches 230 youths between the age of 18-27year from four counties (Meru, Nairobi, Mombasa and Eldoret). After 8 weeks on mentorship, the program will expand to accommodate over 6,000 youths from more regions in the next few months. The target group who are youth who have complete or undergoing tertiary level of training and anxiously preparing for the competitive job market in Kenya will form part of the Virtual Communities and networks between mentees themselves; mentors & mentees and finally between mentors (Virtual Mentorship Club)

To provide a broad spectrum of experience for the youths,SOS Children’s Villages Kenya is partnering with both local and international companies and organizations including DHL International, Total Kenya, Pride-Inn Hotels and among others to give the youth a broad experience.