Return Ministry of Youth Affairs to take care of problems of young people

What you need to know:

  • The National Youth Service is a good initiative, but it is not enough. Instead, the ministry could engage youths in conflict resolution and solving problems.
  • The youths identified with the coalition’s leaders and that is why they voted for them. The leaders need to revisit the manifesto and focus on integrating the youth in the government. 

Mohammed Abdirahim Abdullahi was born and raised in Kenya. He studied in Kenyan schools, yet he led the squad of murderers who last week killed 142 students of Garissa University College. Abdullahi is a sad testimony of the fact that our young people are potential terrorists who will not hesitate to kill. 

It should worry us that educated youths, some from well-off families, are now joining extremist organisations. It is apparent that we have failed to manage our youth.

In Parliament, there are 47 leaders under the age of 35, yet there has been no concerted effort to bring legislation to allow more involvement of the youth in the country’s economic development.

The National Youth Council appears to be out of touch with the youth while the Ministry of Devolution, which is in charge of youth affairs, seems to have more pressing objectives.

There used to be a Youth Ministry which looked after youth affairs and we did not have so much extremism among young people. The President should restore the Ministry of Youth Affairs to deal with the problems of young people.

The Youth Ministry would conduct youth developmental audits, a comprehensive approach to identifying young people’s’ problems and offer the support that youths need in the course of their development.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION

The ministry would provide alternative methods of dealing with the challenges that youths face. It would research youth development and help the government come up with programmes to improve individual youth growth.

The National Youth Service is a good initiative, but it is not enough. Instead, the ministry could engage youths in conflict resolution and solving problems. Perhaps then we would understand why youths are leaning towards radicalisation and what can be done to resolve the matter.

Placing youth issues under the Ministry of Devolution was a quick-fix solution which is not working because there is no quick fix when it comes to matters that concern the youth. The manifesto of the Jubilee Alliance talked a lot about youth matters.

The youths identified with the coalition’s leaders and that is why they voted for them. The leaders need to revisit the manifesto and focus on integrating the youth in the government. 

The youth need to be involved in our country’s development. In order to build hope in Kenyan youth, their affairs need to be handled specifically, not lumped together with other matters.

This can only be done if there is an authority that is solely charged with dealing with youth affairs, such as a full-fledged government ministry.

GIDEON KETER, chairman, United Republican Party, Youth Congress