Caption: Youth who graduated from the 2010-2016 Kenya Youth Empowerment Project that saw over 25,000 trained in various fields. (Photo: KEPSA)
The government has received a World Bank credit to a tune of 15 billion to fund the Kenya Youth Employment and Opportunities (KYEOP) Project aimed at bridging the gap of dwindling job opportunities in both formal and informal employment sectors.
Speaking in Kisumu at Tom Mboya labor college, the National Director of Youth Affairs in the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs Dr. Florence Muinde stated that the five years program is set to benefit more than 280,000 youth drawn from 17 counties with Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and Kwale earmarked to benefit in the first phase.
The Program, Dr. Muinde said the program is to be rolled January 2018 where successful applicants will be exposed to rigorous training, life skill lessons and internship programs for six months.
Dr. Muinde said that the initiative will equip the youth with skills that are on high demand in the job market adding that the government has plans underway to flag the program in other devolved units.
Out of the 15 billion shillings earmarked for the project, 7.5 billion has been slated for training and scaling up workplace experience, 4.15 billion for job creation, and 1.35 billion will be channeled for improving and sprucing the job market while the remaining 2 billion shillings will be directed to strengthening youth policy development and project management capacities.
Kisumu County Director of Youth Affairs Timothy Kajwang stated that with over 150,000 unemployed youth in the devolved unit, the project will play a pivotal role in trimming down the unemployment rates.
Peter Ogenga, the Coordinator of KYEOP at the National Industrial Training Authority (NITA) said the program will also cushion the young job seekers from being exploited by foreign employers who expose them to inhumane treatment and vicious working conditions.
Festus Musyoki from NITA urged the youth aged between 18 and 29 years to apply to enroll in the program disclosing that NITA is fully prepared and equipped to train its prospects.
Applicants who will transit through the initiative will be given 40,000 shillings at the end of their training to invest in businesses besides also receiving a monthly stipend of 6,000 shillings during the 6 months training phase.
The application forms to KYEOP can be downloaded from KYEOP official website or be secured from the youth offices.
The forms should then be dully filled and submitted to Youth Offices before 10th January 2018.