Kenyan TVET RVIST Nominated for Global Awards for Sustainable Development Initiatives
The Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology (RVIST), a technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institution in Kenya, has been nominated for the Sustainable Development Goals Award at the World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics (WFCP) 2023 Awards of Excellence.
The awards ceremony will take place in Montreal, Canada. The other nominees from Kenya are the Kenya School of TVET, which has been nominated for the Teacher Professional Development Award, and the Nairobi Technical Training Institute, which has been nominated in the Applied Research and Innovation Award category.
RVIST has been championing the mitigation of climate change through various programs, including sustainable agriculture, which aims to protect the environment, expand the earth’s natural resource base, and maintain and improve soil fertility.
RVIST works with the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network Global and the United Nations to teach students skills that they can use to fight climate change in their communities. The institution engages students from marginalized areas who are doing outreach to their communities to identify seeds and trees they can plant in their regions.
The institution collaborates with other organizations to leverage value addition from renewable energy. RVIST’s research unit imparts skills to its students to help communities boost food production, and the institution trains communities how to use borehole water and steam instead of discarding boreholes with hot steam.
RVIST works with other community-based institutions operating in marginalized communities to raise awareness of climate change. The institution trains students in sustainable agriculture, agriculture engineering, and renewable energy.
RVIST intensifies climate change activities every year. The institution signed a Memorandum of Understanding with state agencies like KenGen on research and hosts the annual Agri-business expo and participates in Agricultural Society of Kenya trade fairs.
In the next financial year, RVIST plans to have one million tree seedlings, of which 60 percent will be sold and 40 percent will be donated to the community as part of the government’s ambitious project to plant 15 billion trees in the next five years.
The WFCP Awards of Excellence recognize outstanding contributions from member institutions, individuals, and associations’ exceptional initiatives that strengthen applied learning and research outcomes. For RVIST, being nominated for the Sustainable Development Goals Award means that the institution has done an excellent job and has made a mark in the world.
Regardless of the award’s outcome, the institution will continue to work hard to mitigate climate change and train its students to be environmentally conscious.
Kenyan TVET RVIST Nominated for Global Awards for Sustainable Development Initiatives
