• Continent suffers brain drain because leaders do not show youth opportunities
• Kenya needs to invest in young learners and instil value-based leadership skills
Image: BRIAN OTIENO
Young people need to be given opportunities in nation-building and act on their inherent skills, a business expert has said.
Speaking in Mombasa on Tuesday, Equity Group chief commercial officer Samuel Makome said Kenya and Africa suffer brain drain mainly because leaders do not show the youth the opportunities they can exploit.
The bank has an ambitious plan for continental renewal called Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan.
It involves pointing to great African minds opportunities they can exploit in Africa and help build their African countries and the continent in general.
“We have a lot of brilliant young minds that are African and were probably in America, Canada and Europe,” Makome said.
“But they have come back because when we point to them the vision that we have, what we are doing and the transformational journey that Equity Group is, they get excited and they want to join.”
He spoke during the three-day scholars’ congress at Shimo la Tewa High School in Mombasa.
About 1,300 beneficiaries of the bank’s Wings-To-Fly and Elimu Scholarship programmes from the Coast region got vital leadership and life skills during the event.
“Within this plan, we are working closely even with those who have left the country. We are showing them that there are opportunities for them to come and work and develop our country and continent,” Makome said.
He said once people see opportunities and they are able to participate, they come back home.
Makome said Kenya needs to invest in young learners and instil value-based leadership skills in them and develop people who can be proper leaders tomorrow.
The Equity Group chief commercial officer said some of the people from poor backgrounds have huge potential, but this potential may not be tapped because of life problems.
Once they get exposed, some end up becoming great people not only in Kenya but across the world.
“The category of learners we deal with are those from poor backgrounds and disadvantaged,” he said.
“Some of them leave their villages for the first time through this programme. So they require a lot of affirmation, training, development and self-confidence, which they usually lack.
“But many of them, once you spend time with them, they become fully equipped. They become self-confident and you realise there was a huge potential hidden in them,” he said.
Makome said scholarship programmes are key for the growth of the country because huge potential is hidden in extremely needy people.
He however noted that these scholarship programmes must benefit the right people.
If not carefully implemented, scholarship funds may end up benefitting people who do not deserve the scholarship, he said.
This comes in the wake of the Finland scholarship scandal in Uasin Gishu county, where parents paid more than a billion shillings but it ended up not benefitting the needy.
Makome said the way Equity Bank’s scholarship programmes are set up means only the needy and extremely needy cases are targeted.
“We use society leaders and good committees, which represent the society,” Makome said.
“There will be an imam, a pastor, an educational leader, somebody from the bank. There is thorough vetting and validation and visiting the homes to get the situation on the ground.”
He said that is what has made the scholarship programme a success.
At the Shimo la Tewa scholars congress, the learners were in Forms 1s and 2s.
Due to the huge number of learners involved, the bank decided to split the programme into two: one for Form 1s and 2s and another for Form 3s and 4s.
This was part of 18 congresses across the country happening simultaneously.
This year, some 18,000 learners are in Equity Bank’s academic scholarship programmes.