Opinion: It's futile to ignore youth concerns

Having spent time listening to global youth leaders over the last fortnight, I received news that the prolonged lecturers’ strike across our 31 universities may be over, with a sense of relief.

Continuous education and safe leadership opportunities are crucial if the youth in Kenya and elsewhere are to play an effective role in shaping our world. Four in five Kenyans are currently below the age of 35. In thirty years, this age-group will dominate Kenya’s future 100 million.

While passionately patriotic, over 70 per cent would relocate out of the country today if they had the chance.

If a boat was available off the coast of Mombasa, they might even queue to avoid underemployment, corruption, erratic education and health services, ethnic patronage and violence.

None of the beating, whipping or chains seen in the nineteenth century would be necessary in 2018. Our national experience mirrors elsewhere in Africa and the world.

Declining social services and jobs combine with increasing violence and crime in the Brazilian Favelas, India’s Dharavi and South Africa’s Khayelitsha. There is a direct line that links youth leaders North American Peter Wang,15, Brazilian Marielle Franco, 39, and a Kenyan Evans Njoroge, 23. Their actions to stop civilian gun violence, police brutality and corruption cost them their lives this year.

The words of North American teenager and #MarchForOurLives movement leader Jaclyn Corin continue to resonate in me two weeks after I met her in Lukenya.

She was at Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentines day. Armed with an assault rifle, a fellow student walked in and shot dead 17 other students including Peter Wang.

“I knew it was now time to stop being silent. We cannot allow one more child to be shot or one more teacher to have to jump in front of an assault rifle to save the lives of students. Our children and teachers are dying and we have to stop this,” she told me.

Jaclyn and the other 150 young leaders from 40 countries that spent time in Kenya last week are a small but rapidly expanding community of brave leaders. They are increasingly challenging the effectiveness of markets, governments and NGOs for their generation.

Their analysis and actions directly question our choices and national complacency. Too many of our politicians still divide, demonise and sow fear in communities other than their own. In so doing, they rip our national fabric to shreds.

Apart from them, the other influencers that could do this – the priests, pop-stars and promoters – seem too pre-occupied with imparting narrow religious beliefs or selling specific products to offer leadership.

Civic efforts to promote and protect the rule of the law, human rights and diversity are too problem-centered, muffled and underorganised to build aspirational values and visions. We all need new leadership models. For this, we need to turn to those with the imagination and an itch for change.

Young women like Mercy Odondo of Angaza Jamii who organises in her community of Manyatta and elsewhere in Kisumu County to keep women and girls safe from violence.

Mercy and her colleagues combine their local commitment with a global eye. Last year, she also mobilised Kisumu youth to write letters to governments challenging the denial of contraceptives to South African women and the arrests of Congolese pro-democracy activists.

Those of us in our sun-set years may have to practise open listening, curiosity and empathy even when we disagree. It is futile, as we found recently in the case of Wanuri Kahiu’s powerful Rafiki love-story movie, to deny and stigmatise the experiences of our youth.

All that happens is we are caught with our heads stuck in the mud while others watch us make history at the prestigious Cannes Festival and discuss our peculiar habits.

I for one, will skip this form of insanity. To support this generation of leaders to emerge we can do more to act early on their experiences and concerns, shift resources and responsibility to them and collaborate better.