Preparing the youth for national duties

NAIROBI: We have just marked the second passing-out parade of about 10,000 recruits of the National Youth Service since its re-engineering in 2014.

The 9,039 graduands consisted of young women, men among them orphans and those with disabilities. They epitomised President Uhuru Kenyatta’s promise to the Youth of Kenya; to expand opportunities available for the youth so as to participate effectively in our country’s socio-economic space through a policy of transformation.

His vision is to ensure that the lives of our young people are improved exponentially and that the youth are able to participate in and contribute to the country’s political, social and economic growth.

Working with the youth calls for unique approaches and orientation since they are the single most dynamic segment of our population. We must, therefore, adopt effective strategies to address the challenges they face within a rapidly changing local and international context.

My Ministry has adopted a robust policy approach in youth development by spearheading the youth mainstreaming model through the NYS under the agenda of transformative youth empowerment.

To achieve the President’s promise to the youth, he has entrusted my ministry with the mandate to translate his great idea into action through various interventions that include; the Affirmative Action Empowerment funds (UWEZO, WEF, YEDF), Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) and the NYS Youth Empowerment Programme amongst others.

Of all these transformative interventions, the NYS Youth Empowerment Programme has attracted the greatest national interest. This programme is built around the NYS 5-point vision encompassing; paramilitary training and service regimentation, national service and youth re-socialisation, social transformation and vocational training, enterprise and youth economy and bankable institutional architecture.

To fulfil the high national expectation by the youth and considering the expanded mandate of the NYS, we have undertaken the following measures:

• Review of all the NYS training programmes to cater for and address emerging challenges that affect our youth, for instance the declining numbers of skilled workers such as welders, electricians and plumbers, among others.

• Restructuring and rationalisation of all NYS programmes and resources with the aim of improving service delivery.

• Strengthening of systems in financial management, procurement and inventory management amongst other systems. This has created robust systems of accountability and transparency in the utilisation of public resources.

• More importantly, we have undertaken biometric registration of 76,000 youth engaged in community programmes in order to safeguard and better account for public resources.
These measures have put NYS in a strengthened position to address some of the emergent challenges and it is expected to grow into a premier institution that has the confidence and trust of young people and the general public.

The new graduates will proceed to their national duty across the country where they will engage in various activities, including but not limited to; dam and road construction, vector control, slum civil works, Huduma kitchens and agribusiness integrated enterprises.

Under the youth re-socialisation programme, each of these young people in their tour of duty will be expected to mentor their brothers and sisters in our communities. So far, the NYS has mentored over 76,000 community youth.

The increased recruit intake from the traditional 4,211 has had a great impact on the national service and volunteer programmes. Today’s graduands will replace servicemen/women who passed out a year ago, and who will now join our vocational training institutions for studies leading to the award of artisan, craft and diploma certificates.

I urge the youth in the country to focus on the opportunities provided through these initiatives that we have made available for them to change their lives and prosper.

The Government’s initiatives provides an environment in which each young man or woman is able to utilise his abilities for a productive and prosperous Kenya, our ideals in Vision 2030. As you are aware, despite being classified a middle income country, we are still in the lower band, meaning, therefore, we have more to do to improve the lives of our fellow Kenyans.
It is out of the President’s personal commitment and effective leadership, which have made it possible to achieve these milestones in a very short time.