Empower youth to eradicate poverty

Josephine Kamanthe (pictured) is a Trustee, Safaricom Foundation

NAIROBI, KENYA: In July this year, five students from Precious Blood High School in Riruta, Nairobi were selected as finalists in the Technovation Challenge 2016.

The girls who call themselves the ‘sniper team’ consisting of Priscilla Wambui, Laura Ayushi, Victoria Kanan, Gladys Wairimu and Harriet Karanja created a mobile application (App) that seeks to offer a practical tech solution to the transport sector.

The girls won after presenting their innovation, which is a bus booking app called M-Safiri. This was done through the Global App Challenge, an initiative of Safaricom Women in Technology which mentors students to take up technology careers and offers a host of other life skills.

Furaha Joy is another young entrepreneur, a beneficiary of a multi-million youth endowment fund launched last year by Safaricom Foundation. Furaha started a self-help group that has 16 members, 11 women and 5 men in Homabay.

The groups’ main activities include Table banking, Merry Go Round and social welfare. The objective of the group is to eradicate poverty amongst the members.

The two group members profiled here have engaged in different money making ventures that generate income for them and provide daily sustenance, indicating how active the youth have been in coming up with ways of creating employment and in the long run help in poverty reduction.

This is a step in the right direction in a country whose population is over 46 million and of these, majority are living in poverty.  In 2015, the country ranked sixth among 10 others in Sub Saharan Africa that are heavily populated and living in abject poverty.

A study by the Institute of Security Studies indicated that there are 18 million people living under the poverty line and unless drastic action is taken by all the stakeholders, it will be an uphill task to eradicate poverty by 2030.

Unemployment in Kenya stands at 40 per cent while seventy per cent of these are aged between 15 and 35.  According to the World Bank, out of the 800,000 Kenyans waiting to join the job markets each year, only 50, 000 succeed in getting professional jobs.

These high levels of unemployment come with a host of other problems including the rising rates of crime and insecurity.

Kenya is among the countries that have adopted a set of 17 goals that set out to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all.

Ending poverty, hunger, providing good health and education are some of the goals that Kenya has set out to achieve by 2030.

Others are decent work and economic growth and industry, innovation and infrastructure, goals that if subscribed to, will steer the country from the crutches of poverty.

In as much as we expect the government, Non-Governmental Organizations, Private sector and other institutions to dig us out of this pit, the youth can and have played a major role in the fight against poverty.

August 12 is the International Youth day. The day’s theme this year is “The road to 2030: Eradicating poverty and achieving sustainable consumption and production.

This day focuses on the leading role of the youth in ensuring that poverty is a thing of the past by achieving sustainable development through sustainable consumption and production.

It is very encouraging to see that the youth are moving away from employment and are instead working towards self-employment.

The rate at which young people are coming up with very creative innovations and business ideas is a great indicator of how far the youth are willing to go to improve the standards of living for themselves and the society in general.

There are fresh ideas and new innovations every day and what the youth require from stakeholders is the encouragement and support to proceed with their creations as they will benefit the society.

All relevant sectors and especially the government need to come out and support the youth by putting in place proper structures before we suffer from brain drain.