Kenya: Fading hopes of jobless youths

When Aden Abdi, 23, joined college hopes were that his life will be brighter and that he will eradicate poverty out of his rustic family away from despondency. He joined one of the most prestigious public middle level colleges in Kenya's coastal town of Mombasa. Two and a half years later he boastfully graduated with a diploma in Procurement and Material management.

Laden with multihued certificates, he came back to his rural home of Wagberi Village in Wajir County. Every morning he strolled from office to office, his certificates tucked in brown envelope in the hope of landing a high-status job.

“Meanwhile we don’t offer a job but you can leave with us your testimonials,” is the response he often hear from all the offices he visits.

As days go by, his hopes of landing a white-collar job faded and eventually retracts to a world of despair his poverty-stricken family notwithstanding. The same predicament is shared by many youths in Wajir County and the entire northern Kenya.

It is quite ironical, despite the high illiteracy level in the region; the schooled few cannot find jobs either.

The government has made many attempts to help the Kenyan youth to engage in economically viable activities. One such effort is the introduction of the Youth Enterprise Fund (YEP) which was established in 2006 with the purpose of reducing unemployment rate among the Kenyan youth. Billions of shillings was set aside to empower the youth to have a meaningful life.

Although there are other success stories pertaining to the fund in other parts of Kenya, there is nothing to write home about here.

However, like any other publicly managed funds in Kenya it is prone to embezzlement by state officials. “Since its inception the fund is yet to make any impact on the youth,” says Adan Abdi.

“Access to such funds has been difficult due to its complex application procedures and has scared away potential applicants,” he continued.

Redundancy has become a thorn in the flesh for the few educated youth in northern Kenya.

As such, they fall into Khat munching trap and other social evils. The would-be productive energetic members of the society get demoralized and wasted.

In 2010, fears were raised that some Kenyan youth may be lured into joining the Al Shabaab militia fighting in the ungovernable Somalia. In fact reliable information indicates that Kenyan youth joined the dreaded militia in a bid to earn livelihood.

For Aden and others like him in Northern Kenya, every rising sun may bring fortune and a window of progress.

However, his hopes lie in his government that promised to create more than a half a million jobs annually.

Source: www.africanews.com

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