Safaricom takes Blaze mentorship to Nairobi

Safaricom is training youth through mentors to help them choose career paths early in order to avoid the scare of losing focus.

About 60 per cent of Kenya’s population is below 26 years and therefore important for the future of all firms, according to Marion Wanyoike, Safaricom’s Senior Manager for Youth Segment.

Speaking in Nyayo National Stadium during Blaze Summit, the fourth in a series that is being organised by the mobile phone operator, Ms Wanyoike said that the forum is meant to help youth shape their career as well as learn about the Safaricom brand.

“If you are strategically thinking about the future, you must think with the generation that is coming up and will actually drive the economy,” Ms Wanyoike said. “Otherwise, you won’t exist like in the next 10 years if you don’t think about this segment now.”

During the summit, youth got a chance to interact with 28 mentors who were spread in different fields. Some of the key areas where Safaricom is engaging youth are business, agriculture, finance and creative arts.

Wendy Oluoch, Youth Product Manager at Centonomy, a financial management firm said Safaricom brought the firm on board to help youth in making financial decisions. “We are teaching youth how to make money from their talents, save and invest.

“We have instilled in them an entrepreneurial mind in them so that while at school, they generate income for themselves,” Ms Oluoch said.

Now in its third month, the Blaze programme has registered over half a million youth on this network, with over 150,000 using the platform to share their success stories. Similar summits have been held in Eldoret, Thika and Nakuru.

In May, Sylvia Mulinge, Safaricom’s Director for Consumer Business disclosed that the company spent Sh700 million on the development and launch of the programme.