Wasted talent

One of the major problems in Kenya is unemployed youth. Even for university and polytechnic graduates, few job opportunities exist. Youth in Kenya are defined as between ages 15 and 30 and, as such, constitute the majority of the population. The government fears that idling hoodlums will reach critical mass and ultimately degrade society or lead to some version of a revolution.

One of ACESS’s goals is to create employment opportunities for educated youth, who can operate franchises or train farmers and tool manufacturers. To that end, we met with Bondo Constituency Development Fund Director Fred Ogoye and District Youth Officer Mary Ochola, essentially the highest-ranking officials charged with ground-level implementation. The district has made a huge push toward creating youth opportunities. They have councils of youth at every level in the constituency, subsidize polytechnic tuition, and provide technical training. Their work falls under the following themes: employent, training, environment, health, crime & drugs, and volunteerism.

One of their current initiatives is to build hubs where youth can access the internet and apply for jobs, an effort to keep them off the street. They also have a revolving fund of 2m KSH/25.6k USD to support youth groups who pay upfront management fee of 5%. Repayment has been a meager 15% of the 2m KSH. They chalk it up to the post-election violence, but I think the government needs to learn about credit risk.

One of the most interesting things I learned is that the government convenes youth via SMS. If we wanted to access educated youth for interviews, Mary could get up a database of unemployed residents with college degrees, send them 50 KSH of airtime to compensate their travel costs, and they would show up! I’m sure we will be making use of this.