With ‘sponsors’, our lazy youth live it up

An eye-popping 65 per cent of Kenyan youth say it is okay to have a “sponsor” even if you’re in a relationship. That means that they are fine with having a (mostly sexual) relationship with an older person who can finance their lifestyle, while still dating someone their own age. PHOTO | NATION

What you need to know:

  • The study, which covered the 15-24 age group, found out that this demographic focuses on three key topics in their conversations: relationships, money and entertainment.
  • On my Nation FM show, comedian Eddie Butita often jokes about how obsessed Kenyan girls are with men who own cars. We usually laugh it off but he is clearly on to something. The car is still the symbol of wealth and status in Kenya and the first mark of financial stability.
  • If an opportunity arises for one of these young ones to date an ugly, older man or woman armed with a beautiful bank balance, they will jump at it. The hustle is no longer working on a dream, it is about landing a ‘sponsor’”.

An eye-popping 65 per cent of Kenyan youth say it is okay to have a “sponsor” even if you’re in a relationship. If you just landed from Mars, that means that they are fine with having a (mostly sexual) relationship with an older person who can finance their lifestyle, while still dating someone their own age. That was not even the most startling insight from the Sex, Money and Fun research results released by Well Told Story last week.

It also found that 33 per cent of young Kenyans either have a “sponsor” or know someone who has one. The study, which covered the 15-24 age group, found that this demographic focuses on three key topics in their conversations: relationships, money and entertainment.

“The reality, however, is that these are not separate topics but rather three integrated elements of youths’ lifestyle,” the researchers said. The findings were both revelatory and instructive in understanding the character of the modern young person and what makes them tick.

“Date-worthiness is often judged by looks and the ability to pay for fun (and for the date’s fun in the case of a man),” the report’s authors, Rob Burnet, Anastasia Mirzoyants and Bridget Deacon, wrote.

Score one for gender equality, though, as they say “sex and sexuality are traded for ‘sponsorship’ among both men and women.” This appears to disprove the notion that only young girls are out there looking for sugar daddies, now sanitised by the more socially acceptable “sponsor”; young boys are also actively seeking sugar mummies!

The “sponsor” industry is booming in Kenya because this generation doesn’t want to work for anything, and yes, it is an industry. Kids barely out of their teens are going into entry-level jobs and expect incomes that it took their parents two decades of diligent work to make.

Because of the “look at me” culture perfected by social media, they always need new shiny things to show off on Instagram. New iPhone, check; new car, check; new life, check! #blessed #workflow #startedfromthebottom #mylifeisawesome. Little wonder, then, that the survey says on average, young people spend almost twice as much as they earn. That’s when the financial “creativity” (read sponsor) comes in.

COST OF BUSINESS

This generation glorifies flashy individuals whose source of wealth is suspect, quickly turning them into motivational speakers. The guiding principle here is to get rich or die trying, like that old 50 Cent film, except in real life. The overnight millionaires are the ones who get the girls, not the ambitious young man working his way through the ranks, paying off his student loan and saving for a holiday in Mombasa.

On my Nation FM show, comedian Eddie Butita often jokes about how obsessed Kenyan girls are with men who own cars. We usually laugh it off but he is clearly on to something. The car is still a symbol of wealth and status in Kenya and the first mark of financial stability.

Hard work, perseverance and patience have no value in this fast-food generation because they all take time. People who pay their dues have no respect because going through the process is unsexy, slow and not fit for social media. Why bother to take an internship and get your foot in the door in the career you want when you can just become a Facebook star and achieve instant fame, and hopefully, money?

The concept of delayed gratification is an old-fashioned, outdated school of thought that Kenyan millennials don’t appreciate. Society has conditioned them to believe that wealth is the ultimate achievement and how you get there is inconsequential.

You’ll see them again this political season: the rich youngsters, elevated by misguided youths and running for office. Their parties have hordes of impressionable young girls hanging on their arms and wearing much too little clothing.

A “sponsee” is basically a commercial sex worker without the negative connotations of the oldest profession. Socialites whose exact occupations are mysteries yet live glamorously luxurious lifestyles are some of the most followed on social media. They have thousands of adoring fans savouring their every move and envying them.

If an opportunity arises for one of these young ones to date an ugly, older man or woman armed with a beautiful bank balance, they will jump at it. The hustle is no longer working on a dream, it is about landing a ‘sponsor’”.

They will sell their dignity and chastity for an illicit affair, usually with a married man or woman. In exchange, they get that trip to Dubai, where the photographer remains anonymous (#tagyoursponsor anyone?), drive that big car and live in that apartment in Kileleshwa. They also get an unplanned pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease out of it but that’s the cost of doing business, right?

***** 

DIGITAL PROMISES

The ‘laptops’ are here, but…

The picture of President Uhuru Kenyatta sitting in a classroom with pupils in Wajir using the government’s new tablets is interesting for two reasons. First, the girls are all wearing hijabs — the Muslim veil — while the school is called Catholic Primary School. Second, it is the most powerful public relations the “Digital Literacy Programme” has received in months.

Some schools with no electricity are due for a delivery of the tablets, whose values are higher than some teachers’ salaries. Jubilee might have promised laptops four years ago, but here are tablets instead. It was a key pre-election promise and is important in securing next year’s poll.

In schools where pupils learn under a tree and are hungry the whole day, what is more important: a tablet or important supplies? Is it too much to ask that the quality of education be improved, that teachers’ workload be reduced and that schools get adequate funding?

***** 

MORTAL BEINGS

Plane crashes remind us of the magic of aviation 

I don’t know how planes fly; it’s some kind of sorcery that is too complicated for me to wrap my head around. I usually just jump into one of those metallic birds and assume that magic is keeping it up there. Sometimes that illusion is shattered and aircraft fall from the sky, as happened with EgyptAir flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo last Thursday.

I’ve flown the airline once from Nairobi to Cairo and it was ordinary, like any other international carrier; nothing to worry about. I’ve flown from the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris several times and it appeared to be secure even though there were no security checkpoints before entering the terminal.

When an A320 with 66 people crashes mysteriously, it reminds us all of our mortality, and also of how devastating aviation accidents are, however rare they might be. Egyptian officials believe terrorism could be a cause, which makes flying that much more scary.

Heaven help us all.

___________ 

Kenya will never have great scientists because we have socialised ourselves the wrong way. Nations that produce scientists have something in common which we do not have: they value knowledge and are much aware of its importance in economic development and the wellbeing of their citizens. They spend lots of resources coming up with new knowledge to enable them to create new technologies to advance their wellbeing. In Kenya, knowledge is acquired for the sake [of] getting a job.

We start thinking about problem solving at PhD level, that is why everybody, including the Commission for Higher Education, is obsessed with PhDs. Our curriculum can, at best, only produce people whose preoccupation is how to acquire a plot and build flats for rentals. As to where the tenants will come from as the unemployment rate increases is beyond our reasoning because of the way we have been socialised.

Finally, JKUAT has come up with a chapati-making machine, which it is refining.

Kariuki

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There is much to complain about and compliment regarding our education system. Although I have read or watched only harsh criticism of  the system, I would like to appreciate the fact that this system has produced the likes of you and me. Does that make us any less educated? No. However, there is a great need for quality. That seems to be the reflective problem in almost every service and product industry in Kenya. It is this quality that separates the SCLP Samaj School from Joseph Kang’ethe Primary School. If we focused on quality subjects, we would have many globally recognised problem solvers.

Wendi Kibaara

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When you asked the next great Kenyan scientist please stand up, I found myself asking, “Where are the platforms? So, like a typical Kenyan I quickly looked around for the people and institutions to blame. First on the list of shame is Larry Madowo (not the bearer of this enriching message; I don’t kill messengers) but Larry the globe trotter, the media icon who can influence things. He who tweets Bitange Ndemo and can make new scientists who participate in poorly-funded science fairs but have great stuff on offer trend. Then the media houses that love negative narratives about blood and floods, then our leadership.

Tony Kinoti

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As a student-teacher on an internship programme, I’ve interacted with science students and teachers in both private and public secondary and tertiary institutions. What I’ve noted is that most schools are interested in the outcome, not the process.  But, it is the “process of effective learning” that will forge the next generation’s scientists. Based on what is learnt, the questions “Why” or “How?” arise, thereby creating room for new lessons.

That said, it’s time parents and teachers worked together to get rid of this notion of rewarding/acknowledging only students who excel in exams; let’s acknowledge and reward students in other disciplines as well in order to show appreciation for the process, of any fruitful outcome.

So yes, we can have great scientists.  All that is needed is the right motivation (be it acknowledgement or rewarding or just noting) for any and every little milestone overcome during the process. Let’s put as much emphasis on the process as we do on the outcome for effective learning.

Brian