According to the 2019 census results one-third of young people in Kenya, or more accurately, 39 per cent have no jobs. They are unemployed. So what do they do? That is a question that stakeholders need to ask themselves to be able to solve the current problem.
When the stakeholders know what the unemployed youth do for a living, they are better placed to design intervention measures. At Upcountry Success – UPS, we have conducted our own informal surveys in conjunction with respective local administrations in the societies we work, in an effort to help the society solve the unemployment menace. While still unemployed, we found out that the youth strongly feel that they could be useful in society if they had the capital to start businesses. Whereas the government has done a commendable job in availing capital to youth, women, and the marginalized groups, there are still those who are unreached. Most of the unreached are in urban informal settlements and rural areas. UPS decided to focus on the rural areas to help the unserved or underserved youths to get capital for business. We help them by informally mobilizing resources from well-wishers in their communities. Since 2016, we have been able to successfully mobilize resources for various projects. Below is the story of Eric who has benefited from this model of informal resource mobilization.
I met Eric in April of 2020 just about a month after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Kenya. I spotted him from the football field where he plays for the local football team. His conduct in the field made him stand out in terms of character, personality, and ambition. Eric is a form four student and sitting for his national exams in a few weeks time. Besides being a student, he has been able to try his hands on a few non-academic projects in an effort to keep himself engaged, especially over the extended stay at home during the quarantine period.
When I first met him, he said he had a passion for keeping poultry and would concentrate on growing the project while the schools remained closed. I decided to support him in my own small ways because he appeared committed and serious about it. I first challenged him to think of how to creatively engage in poultry in a manner that would motivate other youths around him. He said he would try to hatch his own chicks by creating his own brooder. He truly started the process although he failed to hatch any chick because of the inability to control certain parameters such as temperature and humidity. He came back and said he wanted to pose that process until he gathers enough details on how to successfully run the process. He still remains committed that after school he will have enough time to conduct more research on how to hatch his own chicks. Besides pausing the hatching of chicks, he has chicken that he rears naturally. Below are the images of his failed project of home-made brooder:
While I met Eric, I was still working with a number of other youth on different projects in Gakawa Ward of Nyeri County. He requested to join the group while he was at home so that he could also use his time beneficially. The major activities we were engaged in were farming. To emphasize our working model, even our farming was facilitated by well-wishers from the Gakawa society. In the case of Eric, I placed him to work on a piece of land that we were freely given by Mama Njorua (that is how she introduced herself to me and also how she is referred to locally). Eric did not need to have money of his own to start working on the farm. The farm was already freely given and I pushed and helped him to mobilize any other resources that he needed. He settled on farming onions. Again, another elder offered to mentor him on how to go about the farming of onions. This elder also offered him space on his farm to make the onion nursery so that he could closely monitor and advice him. As I write this, Eric has progressed successfully in the onion project as shown by the images below.
I wrote this article on Eric to first appreciate his effort in being useful and trying to create means for himself despite being a student. Secondly, It is an appreciation to the well-wishers who supported him in the journey. Thirdly, it is to encourage other young people in rural areas to explore ways of accessing the much-needed capital to pursue projects they are interested in.
Take away note: Eric is open to instruction and I can directly link his successful progress so far to him being obedient and respectful to his benefactors. When I visited him, Mama Njorua his benefactor, expressed her satisfaction with Eric and her will to have him use a larger space of her farm.
Story by Kathurima Mwongera
Founder and Coordinator of UPS
