Youths have been challenged to form self-help groups that can be easily identified by the county government for financial support.
Speaking at Nyambaria High school during a fundraising Nyamira County executive in charge of Youths and Sports, Peter Omwanza, said area youths should take advantage of devolved government structures for sustainability and desist from depending on white collar jobs.
He said his docket set aside Sh 10 million to support youths’ initiatives ranging from sports and creativity to individual talents at various fields in financial year 2014/15.
“The reason why we lag behind in development is because we tend to believe in office jobs. If we expunge that mentality and attitude then we can apply for funding from the county government for support of viable projects,” he said.
He said only a few groups have applied for funding despite the county having enough resources to support up to 200 registered groups, and faulted “myopic and irresponsible” politics on reluctance of youths to seek redress from the county.
“We know that some dark forces are inciting you towards the county leadership but time has come to differentiate real development from rhetoric. Let us bury political and personal differences that are hampering performance of our government,” he noted.
Omwanza said programs are in place to build an academy that will be mandated to nurture talents in the four constituencies as a way of appreciating variety of gifts among youths in the county.