The country is gearing up for its general elections on 9th August this year and campaigns for various political seats are underway all around the country. According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the youth account for more than half of the adult population that is eligible to vote making the youth the single most important constituency in the upcoming elections. It is no wonder everyone is clamouring for their attention with questionable promises and implements; much to the chagrin of right thinking Kenyans. Picasso seemed to think that “it takes a very long time to become young” and many an octogenarian have been known to parade and try to pass themselves off as youthful because youth apparently is a state of mind. Thus begging the question, who qualifies as the youth?
According to the Constitution of Kenya 2010, youth is defined as the collectivity of all individuals in the Republic who have attained the age of eighteen years but have not attained the age of thirty-five years.
In the past the government’s solution to the youth question has been to throw money at it, cue Uwezo Youth Fund, Youth Enterprise Development Fund, Kazi Mashinani and most recently Kazi Mtaani ...
As previously asserted, the youth are an integral part of the upcoming elections but I doubt that they are aware of the pivotal role they can play in determining the outcome of the upcoming elections. Be as it may, their current role is to follow politicians around for daily handouts in exchange for their muscle and energy that is expended at the discretion of the politicians. Some are employed in the various campaign secretariats all around the country pushing paper and churning out propaganda for their various masters. To put it succinctly, most youth are being misused by politicians during this election. The election cycle will create more victims than winners in the youth. Politicians currently are and will continue to misuse the youth during elections and leave them miserable not knowing what to with their lives beyond the elections.
It is starkly clear that the youth are not empowered to meaningfully engage in politics and elections in general. Diogenes opined that the foundation of every state is the education of its youth, but we have neglected to do this as a country. Many of the youth have been made to feel that government is an authority that knows what they need. This is evidenced by the many initiatives the government has set up in the past and present to address what it outlined as the needs of the youth.
In the past the government’s solution to the youth question has been to throw money at it, cue Uwezo Youth Fund, Youth Enterprise Development Fund, Kazi Mashinani and most recently Kazi Mtaani which was a good initiative to financially cushion the youth from informal settlements from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. All these funds and initiatives have failed to answer the youth question simply because giving the youth money might be great, but money is not business. Studies that have been conducted as to why the funds have not been effective show that entrepreneurship, business planning and business management skills need to be imparted to the youth before funds are disbursed to them in order for them to even have a fighting chance at running any enterprise.
There is a lot to be said for ingenuity and innovation because more is required in addition to having money and opportunities in order to succeed or build something worthwhile. It takes many cogs to make the wheel that is Kenya run, not all of the youth can or should be in business, the youth should be encouraged to explore all their diverse talents that can then be harnessed to meaningfully contribute to the society. The youth question is a complex one because even the youth themselves have no idea what they need and are not exposed enough to know what they need. So, some of the questions the youth should be asking themselves and politicians as we try to unravel this puzzle are: first, what are the needs of the youth? Who knows the needs of the youth, if no one knows, what efforts can synergistically be made to work towards finding out? How can all the youth be meaningfully represented and engaged in this process? What systems and structures need to be in place for the youth to have a chance to thrive? Who is responsible rather who can be held accountable to put up the said structures and systems, does it require legislation or policies? What is the veracity of the said policies and legislation and in what time frame can they be feasibly implemented in order to have real impact?
How can we fuse the experience of the elders and vibrancy of youth in order to come up with a semblance of a workable solution to this complex youth question that will obviously not have one answer and many more questions that would then have the conversation shift towards finding practical solutions. This calls for all of us to really introspect, tujiangalie kwa makini na kina and be really committed to having an honest conversation that could boon fruit because no one is coming from anywhere else to sort this out for us, we only have ourselves to depend on in order to move the country forward. Viva!