Youth 4 a Better Future Campaign is an ongoing environmental and social campaign that promotes market driven agriculture, enterprise development, environmental conservation and research.
It is an initiative of Maa Community Foundation, Health Awareness Peer Education Programme (HAPEP), IMPACT Kenya Youth Initiative, Tabaiki Sports Association, KEYFORD and STOMAZ.
Its main objective is to raise awareness on environmental, health, sports and entrepreneurship development.
Currently the project has a very successful solid waste management enterprise in Narok town, a bee keeping project, a digital village centre, a goat project, an organic tomato farm project, a tree nurseries project, a micro finance and woodlot project. The target is 100 of such enterprises by November 2010, and by 2013 the founder Ole Mepukori projects that there will be 500 successful social enterprises across Kenya.
Yipe.org recently got the chance to chat with Ole Mepukori who said that he started in 2008, but opened doors to his friends who brought in their friends and so it went.
Right now the project has youth groups from really remote areas selling their goats at a profit to markets as far as Mombasa. “Yes” Ole Mepukori told Yipe, “we want all Kenyan youth to come join us and in ten years we will all look back and say, ‘we helped build Kenya’".
Ole Mepukori adds that the project is not only limited to young people, as he believes everybody has something to offer for the advancement of this cause, and even if that person is an eighty year old granny they can also play a vital role.
He concludes “Lets believe, say little, work hard and Be Young Forever!”
If you are interested in being a Youth 4 a Better Future join the community here >>>>
This is the first detailed global study of its kind that attempts to understand the nature of women mobile subscribers in low and middle-income countries such as Kenya and India.
Among the key findings, the report showed that:
There are 300 million fewer female subscribers than male subscribers worldwide
A woman in Africa is 23% less likely to own a phone than a man.
Going forward, two thirds of potential new subscribers for mobile network operators will be women.
Women in rural areas and lower income brackets stand to benefit the most from closing the gender gap.
93% of women report feeling safer because of their mobile phone.
85% of women report feeling more independent because of their mobile phone
41% of women report having increased income and professional opportunities once they own a phone
An article published in this week's Pambazuka raises issues about policies to promote economic development.
The article, “South Africa’s ‘bling’ culture is a disgrace” by William Gumede tells of a growing new-money class, living a Hollywood-esque life in the midst of poverty.
He writes that this bling lifestyle of parties and fast flashy cars amongst South Africa’s elite, is encouraging others to look for the fast buck, rather working hard or studying.
Even the leaders have joined this new life, with no less than President Zuma’s party the ANC launching a fashion line of leather jackets; the cheapest costing US$ 217.
All this social pressure to live the bling life has for some compromised their integrity and ethical business behaviour because of links to sugar daddy’s, senior politicians and even crime bosses.
Gumede faults South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programme as having contributed to this state of affairs. Because one does not have to build a business brick and mortar, entrepreneurial drive has been culled.
And even for those that have slogged to build their enterprises, corruption in the big business market of public procurement has only benefited a few well connected entrepreneurs.
And Gumede warns that “this ‘bling’ culture will break down South Africa’s productive capacity. We are ‘eating’, but we are not building any new factories or plants that can create jobs …”
Lamentably for the young aspiring entrepreneur, it seems that it may be more worthwhile to try and connect with a blinged elite patron, than to put pen to paper and write their business plan.
Read South Africa’s ‘bling’ culture is a disgrace here >>
The 1st World Youth Meeting at Bari, Italy ended yesterday where African delegates released a Declaration that recognised the challenges African youth face including unemployment, corruption, poverty, lack of access to meaningful education, climate change effects, and civil wars among others.
The Declaration further demanded that African youth be included in decision making and that poverty eradication approaches focus on entrepreneurship development, specifically through the creation of youth funds.
Josphat Karinga is the Technical Director of Ristech Solutions a Kenyan company he founded in 2003. The company provides a wide array of services for individual and business clients, including assisting them to overcome the obstacles of bureaucracy in the application for government documents, courier services and car rentals.
Yipe.org recently got a opportunity to briefly interview him where he also gave some useful tips on maintaining good customer relationships.
The current economic condition for Kenya is on a down hill while the population growth rate is quite high. This implies there is an increase in unemployment as the new jobs created cannot match the increase in population. A situation is created where the youth are finishing university, college and secondary school expecting to be employed yet the economy cannot accommodate them. This will in the end bring social instability especially with the high cost of education.
But what can the government and the private sectors do to help alleviate the situation that may bring the country to its knees? An initiative such as the Kazi Kwa Vijana was started by the government and has ended as a failure, taking the country back to the maze. The Kazi Kwa Vijana could not have been sustained as we can say the jobs given to them “do not add value” to the economy and the government is spending a huge amount of money in paying recurrent expenses. Also some of the jobs given may seem demeaning to some of the unemployed graduates. Telling an engineering graduate to clean trenches shows that the government has no plans for its citizens who are meant to be assets.
Further, unemployment situations in Kenya have been increased by the high requirements by employers in order to get jobs. Requirement of years of professional experience for jobs in Kenya has made it difficult for the fresh graduates to get jobs and their Kenyan dream of finding that dream job after years of education.
For the country to be able to create employment, the government and the private sector should highly consider embracing entrepreneurship as a source of expanding the economy and reducing poverty. With the shift towards technology, the government can use the youth to enhance and come up with new technologies which will help accelerate growth and achieve Vision 2030.
Some of the ways in which the government can do to help youth embrace entrepreneurship are:
Providing financial assistance and guidance. Many youth have good business ideas but translating these to actual jobs is hindered by lack of knowledge of transforming ideas into feasible and tangible work. Also financial guidance on how to spend the initial finance is necessary as the projected financial statements are is not enough, for example, purchasing of essential assets, marketing and branding, establishing of internal business controls, and book keeping.
Providing mentors to the youth who come up with good business ideas or proposals. The mentors are used to guide the youth especially through the tough times as they have been in the business before and they know what to do best in such situations.
Introducing entrepreneurship as a subject in schools so that the students are able to know early enough how to start their own businesses and succeed. Mentality of students has to be changed from them expecting employment for them to create employment. This should be done for both students in professional courses and those in vocational training. In the earlier years, it was preached in radio stations and songs that at the end of education one will get a good job and this mentality has stuck in the mind of the population. We should therefore start changing the minds of people with regards to this.
Providing tax incentives for young entrepreneurs who provide employment to others. There are difficulties involved with business start ups and therefore the government should recognize this effort by giving the youth tax incentives. This has been done to Export Processing Zones (EPZs) to attract foreign direct investments. Local investments should also be considered important as this brings more stimulus to growth as there are no profit flights.
Patenting of special business ideas created by the young people. This may reduce the chances of the ideas being stolen by other capable individuals or by corporations. Good ideas are known to have been submitted to “wrong” organizations which take advantage of the weak protection laws of ideas. These weak laws demoralize the young people with brilliant ideas who may opt to stay with the ideas for long until they are able to finance themselves. Developed countries are known to have proper laws protecting ideas created by its citizens and developing countries should follow suit.
These are only some of the things the government should take into consideration if it has to help the country become entrepreneurial. The effect of citizens creating job opportunities in the economy cannot be over emphasized and the government has to act fast to improve the livelihood of its citizens.
According to the World Health Organisation, gender-based violence is a major public health and human rights problem throughout the world. Though the assault is carried on in the privacy of the home, the violation is widely seen as a "private" family affair, and for some - a normal part of life.
In Kenya, an estimated 49% of married women were physically abused by their husbands (Borwankar et. al, 2008). Though violence against women mainly occurs in the form of physical and sexual assault; it takes many forms including emotional abuse, verbal abuse, and economic abuse.
Economic abuse includes the controlling of finances; not allowing one's partner to venture into enterprise; taking a partner's money without her permission; denying access to, or knowledge of finances as well as using a partner's finances or credit for personal gain.
Socialisation of the girl child
Women entrepreneurs fall victim in part to economic abuse due to familial socialization from the time of birth. From a tender age, socialization which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologiesdifferentiates girls from boys. As boys grow up, they learn to be the head of their future homes as well as being the main (if not only) breadwinners. Girls in turn are socialized to be the home makers and caregivers.
In some settings, a girl’s day starts early. She wakes up to go fetch water and ensure breakfast is ready before she sets off to school. Her brother on the other hand has the luxury of sleeping in. Between the two, the chances of attaining higher grades are in favour of the boy. Then there is the practice of early marriage that dooms young women to lives where they never have the opportunity to actualise their aspirations.
Though education is one way in which women can emancipate themselves from the grip of the culture of male domination, the education system has only served to perpetuate the proposition that women should be more “arts” oriented than their science oriented brothers. Women are under-represented in tertiary institutions where they would have had the opportunity and facilities to hone their entrepreneurial skills. This in turn adversely affects their business growth potential.
McDowell and Pringle (1992) have argued that women are not only constantly defined in relation to men, but are defined as dependent and subordinate to them as well. This has been manifested in the low numbers of women entrepreneurs in “manly” sectors such as manufacturing. Women tend to operate micro service oriented enterprises with low possibilities for growth. The International Finance Corporation in Kenya has found that despite their potential, women-owned businesses which predominate in trade and service sectors, are smaller and less likely to grow.
And, all their early experiences and nurtured perceptions result in some established women entrepreneurs being disempowered when it comes to making independent decisions about how to spend their business profits as well as the direction for their businesses’ growth. Moreover, though many women empowerment programes focus on entrepreneurship development as a means to empower women, they neglect to design and implement ways to address gender based violence towards so-called “empowered” women.
WHO Controls The Purse Strings?
Then there is the issue of who actually “wears the trousers”, or has control of the household or business budget. Though single-motherhood and female headed households are becoming more common, these homes tend to be poorer than male headed homes. According to the International Fund for Agriculture & Development (IFAD), the reasons are that female headed households tend to have a higher dependency ratio in spite of their smaller average size, and also have less access to resources.
An unfortunate trend has also been recognized where there is the self-perpetuating cycle of these women heads of household also causing their daughters to assume the same roles of unpaid house-help and caregivers, whilst their sons are urged to study so they can in future pull the family out of poverty.
Thus the question for development experts is: what is the use of trying to improve women’s livelihoods while such male dominating norms and perceptions continue to thrive?
Ending the silence
Through the emergence of micro-finance pioneered by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, financial institutions and policy makers have come to acknowledge the challenges women entrepreneurs face, not least in accessing loans. However once credit is given, who is to say that the beneficiary can keep to the loan agreement if her partner insists on having if not a share then all of the money?
Lack of access to education and opportunity, and low status are correlated to violence against women. Long term socialisation and inaction has meant that many women do not seek help or report abuse when it occurs. Cultural norms, lack of awareness, community pressure and widespread insensitivity of officials have also contributed to the fact that the majority of women who are abused suffer in silence.
Though the educational system needs to take into consideration the inequalities of the girl child when they enroll in school, it is ultimately most vital that there is a committed move to strengthen policy and legal frameworks to recognize economic abuse and outlaw all forms of gender based violence.
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