Five days in Emuhaya: the story of the REACT Training of Trainers

On Monday 5 October 2026, the vans pull up outside the painted walls of Kipepeo Community Empowerment Program in Emuhaya, western Kenya. On board are trainers from Andalusia and Casamance; the Kenyan teams are waiting for them. For five days, they will all learn the same craft: becoming REACT trainers.

Four organisations, three countries, one courtyard. Inserta Andalucía arrives from Spain, the Plateforme des Femmes pour la Paix en Casamance from Senegal; Kipepeo and Innovation Hub Kenya are the hosts. Names read for months in project exchanges finally have faces.

Before learning together, you have to trust each other. The days begin outdoors, in a circle, with team-building activities: introductions, laughter, and learning to work with many voices and in several languages.

A visit to the village is also a reminder of why everyone is here. REACT is for young people and women in rural areas: communities like this one are where the trainers will work.

In the training room, a large butterfly is painted on the wall: kipepeo means butterfly in Swahili. This is where the heart of the programme opens: the Digital & Entrepreneurial Training Toolkit and its twelve modules, from digital foundations to the green transition and community action.

The programme for 7 October, projected on the wall, sets the pace: discussion groups on the modules, an update on the digital centres, reflections, next steps and future collaboration. The topics are practical and rooted in rural life: digital identity, communication, business opportunities, and mobile money, already central to everyday economic life in Kenya as in Senegal.

A Training of Trainers is not only about learning: it is about learning to teach. Each participant stands in front of the group for assessed micro-teaching sessions before they can be certified.

“Learning together. Transforming locally.”

— The REACT project's motto

Between sessions, people work in small groups, explain a tool to each other on a phone, and compare the realities of Andalusia, Casamance and Emuhaya. The toolkit fills up with examples from all three territories.

Then comes the long-awaited moment. One by one, participants receive their REACT trainer certificate, awarded by Innovation Hub Kenya, which leads the work package on the training programme. It confirms the twelve modules completed and the micro-teaching sessions passed.

Then come the hugs, the group photos, the last pictures outside the Kipepeo building. In five days, four teams have become one network.

The training in Emuhaya was not an end but a starting point. The certified trainers return to their territories with a mission: to pass on what they have learned.

In the coming months, they will train 75 young people and women in rural areas, 25 per country, in digital skills, green entrepreneurship and civic participation. That is where the next chapter begins.

See the training programme on the Training of Trainers page, and every photo in the gallery.