Existing Opportunities For Youth In Kajiado County

As per the Kenyan Government a Youth is defined as a, young person between the ages of 18 years and 35 years.

The County Government of Kajiado in partnership with the ministry of Youths has been able to set up opportunities for the youths within the County. The Kajiado County Government is in the process of registering and pre-qualifying youth-owned enterprises so that they can access County Government tenders and contracts. Government tenders amount to millions each year; it is a great opening for the youth of Kajiado County. The tenders are well published and advertised on the County press as well as the public notice boards for the general public.

The development objective of the Youth Employment and Opportunities Project for Kajiado County Government is to increase employment and earnings opportunities for targeted youths. The project comprises of four components. The first component; improving youth employability, addresses the skills mismatch of youth by engaging training providers such as CRECO (Constitution and Reform Education Consortium) and private sector employers to know the rights for the youths and to offer training and work experience to targeted youth. This component will contain two sub-components: i) Provision of training and work experience in the formal sector and ii) Provision of training and work experience in the informal sector.

Youth in Kajiado County being taken through  a session on 'Using internet tools for wealth generation."

The second component, support for job creation responds to the need for job creation with initiatives to help launch new businesses, improve the productivity and job creation potential of existing micro enterprises and among self-employed youth, and support innovative approaches to improve job and incoming earning opportunities among the hard-to-serve youth. This component is structured into two subcomponents, jointly implemented by the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs. i) Support for the self-employed and ii) Catalytic interventions for job creation; The third component, improving labor market information plans to improve access to and the quality of labor market information to help public and private actors make decisions and formulate policies; The fourth component, strengthening youth policy development and project management will support capacity building for the Directorate of Youth Affairs and the management and coordination of the overall Project. It includes three subcomponents: (a) building youth employment policy development and coordination capabilities; (b) Monitor and evaluation of youth employment policies and funds; and (c) project management and coordination.

Image, courtesy

By Ruth Kinuthia, Kajiado County 

Ruth Kinuthia is an entrepreneur with a passion for software development to tackle big social problems. She holds a bachelor's degree in Computer science from Kenyatta University, Kenya. Ruth has over three years of experience in community development, and volunteer work. She has worked with organizations such as , Youth Alive Kenya ,Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO), and Youth Agenda to develop scale-able solutions to challenges that directly affect the youth, women and people with disabilities. She is an active member of Youth Alive Kenya ; and she is one of three students picked from Kenya to undergo Right to Participate exchange program in Norway between 7th January 2018 to 17th March 2018.  Upon completion of Right to Participate exchange program in Norway, Ruth wishes to work towards the full launch of her mission, which has a focus on community work and development.