Kiambu County department of education, culture and social services has launched a programme aimed at tapping talents from the youth, women and people living with disabilities.
Speaking on Monday during the launch of Thika sub county Talents and Cultural Search Festival at Thika Community Hall, Kiambu County Education and Culture CeC Esther Ndirangu said the programme will aim at identifying and nurturing various talents in the county with an overall goal of empowering the participants.
"Talents pay very well nowadays. This county great talents in music, drama, comedy, theatre, poetry, culture, just to name but a few yet they remain under-utilised for lack of an elaborate frame work where we can tap these talents," she said.
She added: "Our plan will be to identify and nurture talents. This will go along way in addressing the problem of unemployment especially among our youth both in the long and the short term. The issue of alcoholism will also go down as we are also targeting most of the recovering alcoholics."
Ms Ndirangu said the pilot programme will start in Thika, Limuru and Kabete sub counties after which it will be rolled out in the other nine sub counties after testing its viability.
She said that cultural centres will be set up thereafter in every sub county where the talents can be identified and nurtured.
"We are already renovating a hall in Kiambu Town at a cost of Sh14 million that will be used by the best talents in the county to showcase their prowess especially on weekends. This way, they can earn through gate charges or through being invitations to perform in social events by both the corporates and individuals," she said.