A community-based organisation
We equip youth from low-income backgrounds along Kenya’s coast with practical life skills for real-world jobs.
Boat building, marine engines, long-line fishing and marine painting, alongside carpentry, baking, tailoring and hairdressing. Practical trades, taught hands-on, so young people leave with a skill someone will pay for.
Who we are
The CBO is a community-based organisation led by Meena Kombo and Michael Otieno, dedicated to helping impoverished youth who are unemployed to build practical life skills and access opportunities for work.
We train the underprivileged and youths overcoming substance use challenges in trades that sustain Kenya’s coast: boat building, painting, engine repair and maintenance, baking, carpentry, tailoring, basic computer skills and other everyday business skills needed to run a successful family life. The training is practical and hands-on, delivered close to the water by experienced people.
Our story →
What we do
Marine trades
Long-line fishing, fibreglass boat building, carpentry and marine painting.
Engine building and maintenance
Engine building and maintenance.
Tailoring
Tailoring and hairdressing, with the basics of running a small business.
Computer skills
Basic computer skills for everyday work and business.
Farming
Growing food and learning the basics of small-scale agriculture.
We also run a small student hardship fund. How it works
All our programmes →At a glance
- 10
- trades taught
- 2024
- registered as a CBO
- Likoni
- Mombasa, where we work
For foundations, companies and major donors
Fund a trade, and see exactly what it does.
We’ll put together a short brief on any of our programmes: how many young people it trains, what the tools and materials cost, and how we’ll report back to you. Or talk to Meena directly.
I learned fibreglass work at LongSan. Now I repair boats for the fishermen on our beach, and I earn my own money.