Young people from Nairobi’s informal settlements have called for greater access to jobs, financing, technology and basic services, saying skills training alone is not enough to secure sustainable livelihoods.
The youth said many of them acquire skills but remain unable to turn them into income because of limited access to equipment, information, finance and employment opportunities.
The concerns emerged during International Youth Day celebrations at Nairobi Cinema, held under the theme “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations.”
Jacob Omondi, a youth from Mathare and a community organiser at Muungano wa Wanakijiji, said young people in informal settlements were often left behind despite having skills and talent that could earn them a living. He said the challenge was not always a lack of ability, but the resources needed to put those abilities to work.
“You can have the skill, but you don’t have the equipment,” Omondi said, citing the cost of cameras, laptops, phones and internet access as some of the barriers facing young people seeking to work in areas such as photography, filmmaking and digital storytelling.
Omondi said poverty also affected young people’s access to information about available opportunities and government programmes. He called for greater involvement of young people in designing programmes intended to benefit them, as well as better and more current data to guide interventions.
Camila Gojobe from Mukuru Kwa Njenga said unemployment and insecure work remained major concerns for young people in informal settlements. She said many young people were forced into casual jobs despite having education or other skills.
“Sometimes, even if you get a job there, it’s casual work not contract, meaning you can get work today, and you might not get work tomorrow,” she said.
Gojobe said prolonged poverty also affected young people’s mental health, relationships and ability to plan for their futures.
“We grew in poverty. I’ll say poverty is somehow trauma in our life,” she said, describing the experience of many young people living in “survival mode”.
She, however, pointed to young people who were creating their own opportunities through businesses, technology and other initiatives, saying the focus should be on making existing opportunities easier to access.
Brian Mulama, Nairobi County Executive Committee Member for Talent, Skills Development and Care, said the county was expanding opportunities for young people through skills training and employment programmes.
He said the county had created opportunities through initiatives including Green Nairobi and its Inspectorate programme, while thousands of young people were also receiving vocational training.
Maurice Muriithi, Nairobi Regional Coordinator for Youth Development and County Director of Youth Affairs, said government programmes were intended to connect young people with opportunities, funding and information.
He urged young people to be proactive in seeking available opportunities, saying youth offices existed to help them access government programmes.
Questions around access and the effectiveness of youth funding remained central to the discussions, with young participants calling for simpler application processes and greater transparency.
Dr Anne Yegon, Deputy Director at the State Department for Youth Affairs and Creative Economy and National Coordinator of the Vijana Vuka na Afya (VIVA) youth programme, said the theme of this year’s International Youth Day reflected the shared aspirations of young people despite their different circumstances.
She said young people across different communities continued to seek “opportunity, dignity, peace, inclusion, decent livelihoods and a better future”.
The State Department called for greater investment in education, skills, decent work, technology, innovation, financing and leadership, while urging young people to move beyond being beneficiaries of development programmes and become partners in designing and implementing solutions affecting their lives.
For young people from Nairobi’s informal settlements, however, the message from the celebrations was clear, that having a skill is only the beginning.
The real test is whether that skill can translate into a decent livelihood and a life lived with dignity.