With a large number of Murang’a youths grappling with alcoholism and joblessness, the county government has launched a programme that will see more than 1,500 youths acquire short-term jobs.
The Sh115 million programme dubbed Murang’a Youth Service will see youths engaged in cleaning urban centres for a period of three months, receiving a Sh400 daily stipend.
Out of the money, Sh100 will go to their parents in a bid to turn them into key motivators of the youths as they perform their duties.
After three months, the youths will then be enrolled in various Technical, Vocational Education and Training Colleges (Tvets) for free technical courses after which they will each receive Sh15,000 to fund their start-ups.
Governor Irungu Kang’ata who spoke during the launch of the programme at Ihura Stadium explained that the programme will be implemented annually to empower as many youths as possible.
Kang’ata said the Murang’a Youth Service is structured to ensure 97 per cent of the resources go towards youths’ salaries and tokens while the rest cover administrative costs.
“The county has only 200 sweepers but we can’t employ more because of the Public Finance Management Act that limits the number of people a county can employ," he said.
He noted that he borrowed the idea from Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States of America, who was elected in 1933 only to find the country struggling due to the great depression.
The USA was then facing joblessness and despondency, and Roosevelt enacted the New Deal, a series of programmes and financial reforms to provide relief to farmers and the unemployed while fostering economic recovery.
One of the programmes Roosevelt started was dubbed Youth Service and was aimed at providing job opportunities for youths and equipping them with skills before releasing them into the job market.
Previously, Kang’ata said, the economic thinking then was that the economy should be left to the free market but the theory was upended by British philosopher John Keynes who asserted that the government has a role in ensuring there is employment and economic growth.
Roosevelt implemented the programmes until 1939 and became the only US president to be re-elected four times to date before he died in 1945 following an illness.
“As a leader, the only thing you can do is study history and see what other leaders have done whenever they have been confronted with the problems we are currently facing in the country, particularly the challenge of youth unemployment," Kang'ata said.
“That thinking is what informed this administration. Our various programmes are based on the idea that the government can in a targeted manner revive a collapsing economy."
He said failure to empower youths could give rise to criminal outfits as they seek ways of ensuring their survival.
The county government has established a social medical programme dubbed Kang’ata Care that provides free NHIF cover to more than 40,000 households.
It also facilitates a free lunch programme for all Early Childhood Development Education learners while providing subsidies to about 40,000 dairy and mango farmers.
Community development programme enables MCAs to participate in the economic development of their wards and ensures all areas of the county are developed equally.
Youths Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba lauded Kang’ata for the programme that he said will change the lives of many youths.
Namwamba who was recently appointed by the President to sit in the Global Leadership Council under the United Nations’ Generation Unlimited programme said the county has shown initiative and will benefit from various programmes targeting youths.
“I was in New York, USA, last month and in my maiden appearance at the Council presented Kenya’s young people agenda that is about raising their capacity and employability, and it was adapted as part of the global agenda," Namwamba said.
He said the government is about to roll out a transformational World Bank-funded programme dubbed National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (Nyota) project that will empower more than 816,000 youths across the country.
Namwamba said Murang’a will be at the heart of the programme and that the 1,500 youths engaged under the Youth Service Programme will form the nucleus of the group that will benefit from Nyota.
The government is also about to roll out a special programme on climate adaptation to mitigate the challenges of climate change.
The programme dubbed One Million Youth Green Army being implemented by his ministry in partnership with the University of Nairobi, the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Global Climate Centre will train youths on climate adaptation and leadership.
He further noted that Talanta Hela, a programme that identifies and commercialises talent among Kenyan youths will roll out specific activities to benefit Murang’a youths.
