1. family and parenting
2. children

Organization Profile
Northern Front Youth League
(NoFYL): 2014
Background Information
Northern Front Youth League (NoFYL) is an indigenous local NGO based in Banadir region,
Gedo region and North Eastern province, Kenya with its head office in Elwak, Kenya. NoFYL was
founded in 2005 in Somalia as a welfare society by local Somali pastoral youth and women who
were committed to improving the living standards and the level of decision making of their
fellow pastoral women and the girl child in Somalia and north eastern Kenya.
The organization was also registered in Kenya under the NGO co-ordination ACT of 1990 in January
2014 as Northern Front Youth League (NoFYL) Reg No OP.218/ 051/ 951/ 446. The organization
particularly targets youth, women and children, the most vulnerable members of the society; it
addresses issues of Education, health, Nutrition, Agriculture and livestock management, water
and sanitation, campaigns and advocacy, women empowerment through civic education,
emergencies interventions and women IGA and protection programmes. It works with the pastoral
communities at large to identify core problems.
NoFYL aims to build confidence, raise self-esteem and empower the community we work
with to participate fully in their own affair and decision making to facilitate community based
projects. This is aimed to exploit the natural and human resources available in the region whilst
sustaining and improving the environment for the benefit of the habitants and their livestock.
The organization aims to bring together the local community with their expertise and experience
and the development agencies with their resource to confront ignorance, diseases, poor livestock
husbandry, environmental degradation and the resultant poverty and backwardness.
NoFYL forms the basis for networking with other civil society organization both at the Local
and international level to create a resource centre and a forum for discussion; exchange ideas
on problems affecting the pastoral community. While also integrating the existing projects
for improvement on proper healthcare and the living standards towards self-employment
opportunities and initiate food self-sufficiency strategies and funding.
Organization Objectives
Address the needs of the youth, women, children and other vulnerable groups in the
community through support to development process
Empower youth and women through Income Generating Activities in order to achieve
sustainable self-dependence
Promote improved living standard from nomadic to semi-urban lifestyle.
Promote and work towards improved livestock husbandry system with the aim of mitigating
the widespread environmental degradation.
Equip youth and women with life skills through trainings and workshops
Strengthen the culture of peaceful co-existence among different clans
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Northern Front Youth League (NoFYL): 2014
Organization’s Developmental Strategies
NoFYL VISION:
Alleviation of poverty to pave way for a dignified and empowered community
NoFYL VALUES:
Truthfulness, transparency and accountability, and public mindfulness
NoFYL MISSION:
Support and inspire the youth and women in the Northern Frontier and the horn of Africa,
through building their capacity, knowledge and ability to take control of their lives.
NoFYL pursues this mission through:
Implementation of integrated sustainable development projects that are community
managed, with special concern for poor women and destitute children.
Emergency response to women and children afflicted by natural and man-made disasters.
Advocacy for change of unjust socio-economic and political structures that affect the
communities it works with.
Information sharing and awareness creation on the rights of women and the girl child.
NoFYL STRATEGIES
NoFYL programs aims at improving the living standards of the pastoral community.
NoFYL will pursue these strategies through implementation of community-based multi-sectoral
integrated development programs. The basis for this approach is influenced by three factors:
Previous funding and implementation of NoFYL activities have been sector specific. By
mobilizing its resources along sectoral lines.
NoFYL plans and budget are prepared along the respective sectors, thus making them
easy to understand and report, especially by the project staff and the partner communities.
During implementation, the organization will be seeking collaboration with various line
ministries. This approach will be ideal to help NoFYL identify and cooperate with the
respective line ministries to the relevant sector.
STRATEGIC FOCUS
NoFYL develops programs that are geared at empowering the local communities in Somalia
and Kenya to become self-sufficient and improve their livelihoods in general. NoFYL makes
deliberate efforts to link its goals to the MDGs and therefore applies Gender, HIV/AIDS and
Environment mainstreaming in all its activities. Our strategic focus areas include: Education,
Health & Nutrition, Water Sanitation Hygiene (WASH), emergency relief and other Livelihood
support, and Peace and Governance.
NoFYL maintains internal financial control systems and strict monitoring and evaluation
processes, including established yardsticks for evaluating the effectiveness, impact, relevance,
sustainability and efficiency of all interventions. Mid-term and final project evaluations are
routinely carried out with the participation of all stakeholders. These evaluations have led to
greater accountability and have improved the overall performance of the organization.
Northern Front Youth League (NoFYL): 2014
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OUR PROGRAMS
Health & Nutrition
Malnutrition contributes to the
deaths of children and a lifetime
of poor health. Thousands of
children in Gedo region are
malnourished. That’s why we
are committed to providing
robust health and nutrition
programs that save children’s
lives and ensure they grow up
healthy.
NoFYL works to improve health
and nutrition of mothers,
newborn babies and children,
with special attention to poor
and vulnerable communities.
We work in hard-to-reach and
impoverished communities, as well as with families hard hit by natural disasters and conflict.
In 2014, we plan to provide lifesaving treatment to children, including for diseases like
malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea, and for acute malnutrition.
Formal & Informal Education
Education and formal classroom learning opportunities are limited and unavailable for a
majority of children in Gedo region. There have been substantial increases in the number of
operational schools and in enrolment rates, but considerable disparities in the quality of and
access to primary education are still problematic in parts of the country because of the socioeconomic, cultural and political realities.
There are primary schools in all districts of the Gedo region except for El Waq. Unfortunately
there is no secondary school in the region. Some of the schools receive assistance from
international NGOs, while other schools operate without international aid. Large numbers
of school-age children living
near the Kenyan border, i.e. in
the towns of Belet Hawa and
El Waq, are taught at Kenyan
schools in Mandera and El Wak
in Kenya. This holds true at
both primary and secondary
level. In the town of Belet
Hawa, for instance, 40% of
all school-age children are
believed to attend School in
Mandera, Kenya.
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Northern Front Youth League (NoFYL): 2014
Water Sanitation Hygiene (WASH)
Access to good water is the key factor constraining production
in most parts of Somalia. Key water resources in the areas we
operate are provided by the Dawa and Juba rivers; shallow
wells and permanent boreholes; swamps in the flood
plains and rainwater. Small dams, depressions and
reservoirs in grazing areas in the uplands constitute
the main rainfall water catchments although most
of them are silted because of poor maintenance.
High local temperatures and evaporation levels
contribute significantly to water loss.
The objectives of this program area include: 1)
reaching underserved communities with potable
and affordable water for both human and livestock
consumption through development and/or rehabilitation
of water sources, water quality testing and community
empowerment; and 2) contributing towards a safer environment
and better health conditions through facilitation of provision
of safe sanitation facilities and access to correct hygiene information.
Livelihood Support
NoFYL believes that
income earning
opportunities are an
essential foundation
for sustained poverty
reduction and for
effective reintegration
of IDPs. Without
increased economic
and employment
opportunities, it will
be very difficult to
sustain support to ever
increasing IDPs. Without
private sector growth
it will be impossible to
generate the sustainable
revenue base needed to provide essential public services such as security, basic education,
health services and key infrastructure. There is also the appreciation that capacity building
often needs to precede actual implementation of any reconstruction and development
initiatives such as infrastructure investment.
The main objective of this program area is to reduce the vulnerability of women headed
households and youth in the region through provision of livelihood diversification
opportunities (income generating activities - IGAs) and provision of positive life skills
(vocational training) respectively.
Northern Front Youth League (NoFYL): 2014
5
Peace and Governance
Peace and good governance are prerequisites for sustainable socio-economic development.
The objective of this program is to promote effective, efficient and reliable local governance
structures in Somalia, particularly in the Southern regions. NoFYL engages in Peace and Good
Governance through civic education, lobbying and advocacy and partnership development
to encourage peace-building and state-building as peace cannot be sustained without the
requisite state institutions and the provision of basic services to the local populations as
citizens of the state. Reconciliation, conflict resolution and peace building remain central
themes in the programming of NoFYL while adopting the do-no-harm principle.
Most of our programmes are community based and are generated through participatory
Learning and Action, community consultation and workshops action plans.
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Northern Front Youth League (NoFYL): 2014
WHERE WE WORK
Country
Kenya
Somalia
Sectors
Education
Health
WASH
Livelihood
Protection
Youth & Governance
Contacts Mogadishu Office
Northern Frontier Youth League
Makka Al Mukarama Road
P.O. BOX 10475-00100, Nairobi
Tel (Ke) 254-721 314590
Tel (Som) +252 617519350
Email: info@northerfrontieryouth.org I infogedo@
northernfrontieryouth.org
Website: http://northernfrontieryouth.org/