By Seline Nyangere
Kajiado County, Kenya: Every year on 12th August, the world celebrates the youths, this year’s theme, from Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development has seen most youths embrace digital platforms and become innovators of Digital Hubs.
In Kajiado County, as youths celebrated International Youth’s Day, youths in the digital space came together to give accounts of their experience working, using, and discovering the digital space.
Boniface Munah, one of the sole proprietors of Kajiado Digital Innovators said that, with the changing world, it is important for everyone to embrace the digital space, especially the youths, and this can only happen with the support of the government.
“I would say that everything in this country is now dynamic, things are changing every morning and we need to capitalize on the internet, and digital skills for the young people and the people of Kajiado. We ask the government to help us have more computer hubs and funding so as to rehabilitate training. Personally, in our CBO we encourage the youths to come and learn as we train them, we are also looking for investors”, said Munah.
The digital space has given some youths an opportunity to showcase their talents and skills. With creativity, a smartphone, and access to the internet, one can easily earn online. Sasha Metito, known on Tiktok as Sasha Met secured her job at Paran Afrcia Media through social media. To her, getting a job will not be a big challenge as long as you have anything to share online.
“With the digital space, you can create content with anything. If you are a farmer you can show us how onions and potatoes are planted, if you make beads you can share them online, you can just do anything, as long as you have a phone you can have content. For you to gain followers and work with brands, you have to be creative and if you have a talent show them through social media and be patient, you will just gain followers” revealed Metito.
Cynthia Simantoi a project officer at the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), and a content creator encouraged the youths to make good use of these online platforms and bring positive changes in their lives because, from her experience, she has interacted with different people who have different stories of change online.
“I want to urge every young person to use their online platform to bring meaningful change in their lives. Personally, I use my online platform to talk about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which I advocate against, I have been able to use that platform to reach people at the grassroots level and get stories from different people and I believe that youths can take the online platform and create jobs for themselves”, echoed Simantoi.
The Executive Director of Malkia Initiative Jedidah Lemaron said that this year’s International Youth Day theme should speak to the youths about digitization. The youths can create and get businesses via TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms and learn new skills too.
“For a long time, the youths have been left behind but digitization has contributed so much to assist the young people. Based on today’s theme, the youths should be able to embrace digitization, some youths have been doing their businesses using TikTok, FaceBook, and Instagram, we have seen young people in Kajiado make beads post them online, and sell them and there are other more businesses. Since the world has gone digital, there are youths who have learned how to operate computers, how to code, and many other things via social media platforms”, said Lemaron.
In as much as the digital platform is providing the youths with income and opportunities, they also face various challenges, such as cyberbullying internet inaccessibility, and lack of enough support from the government. Vincent Erina, a youth at Kajiado County has asked the government to support the youth’s access to computers and the internet.
“As youths, we have a challenge when it comes to employment. We have been told about digital jobs and they pay well but there are challenges youths face, such as accessing the internet in our centers. There is a gap and I call upon the government to chip in and install for us free Wi-Fi in our areas, buy for us computers”, said Erina.
Kajiado county governor through the youth department has vowed to support the youths in Kajiado by setting aside a budget that will support talents.
