The term unemployment refers to a situation when a person who is actively searching for a job is unable to find work. Unemployment is considered to be a key measure of the health status of the economy. The most frequent measure of unemployment is the unemployment rate, which is the unemployed population divided by the number of people in the labor force.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on employment in Kenya. Employment by private sector firms fell by 16% between March and April 2020. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics data, the number of employed shrunk to 15.9 million Kenyans from a higher 17.8 million Kenyans.
Despite envisaging the needs of the youth in Vision 2030, high rates of unemployment continue to bite the millennials and the youth resulting in economic distress and if unchecked may lead to extremely low rates of unemployment which may end up in the overheated economy. Both National and County governments need to offer unemployment allowance or insurance to certain unemployed youth or individuals who meet eligibility requirements in Kenya.
Youth Empowerment Strategies
The Empowerment Skills are of five kinds, namely: Life Coping Skills, Manipulative Skills, Intellectual Skills, Communicative Skills, and Artistic Skills. These are natural skills that every organism including man, acquires from birth to adapt to his or her environment.
Empowerment theory focuses on processes that enable participation; enhance control through shared decision making, and create opportunities to learn practice, and increase skills.
Therefore, youth empowerment is a process where young people are encouraged to take charge of their lives. They do this by addressing their situation and then taking action in order to improve their access to resources and transform their consciousness through their beliefs, values, and attitudes. Youth empowerment aims to improve quality of life. Youth empowerment is achieved through participation in youth empowerment programs and not on paperwork.
Youth empowerment is different from youth development because development is centered on developing individuals, while empowerment is focused on creating greater community change relies on the development of individual capacity.
Youth empowerment programs in Kenya should therefore promote the general capacity for the youth aimed at creating healthier and higher qualities of life for underprivileged or at-risk youth.
Economic inequality
Despite Kenya registering economic growth every year, the growth dividend does not trickle down to most of the average Kenyans. Most of the growth-share goes to the big boys. It’s estimated that we have about 350 billionaires living in Kenya. With this in mind who takes the lion’s share of the wallet?
”Made in Kenya” Products as the answer to our problems
Homegrown industrialization would offer an everlasting solution to the African nations with low employment rates. Kenya has many resources and skills to make our own products for our own use and the surplus can be exported. Why not create supermarkets and shops with 100% ”Made in Kenya” products? Such a business model would stimulate economic growth and benefit from tax incentives by the government to promote local production and talent nurture.
The youth should be allowed to compete among themselves for skill development. These ideas will win medals and the government should absorb them and make them realize their dreams. Towards this end, we need to profile the youth skills, keep data bank, source support, including extending specific incentives to MSMEs ran these low-medium skilled Jua kali artisans and craftsmen to ensure that their passions become professions, cottage industries, and employment opportunities for the nation.
In Europe, the youth age bracket is 15-29 years, and nurturing of the skills starts pretty early. In Kenya, we start promoting these skills from 25-35 years when the ‘tree’ is too old to peg it down. Our start-point is the end-point for the European youth. Going forward, we need to expand the bracket to loop in younger Kenyans, say 15-35 years. Therefore, to succeed in Youth Empower Programs, we need to keep improving by starting with high school learners @skill labs & incubation centers, seeking partnership, collaboration with the church, schools, colleges, universities for inclusion and sustainability.
Educating and supporting our youth is the best way to invest in a prosperous future. (quote by John Adriance)
The writer (Titus Kinoti) is an author of motivational articles and books
