By Robert Manyara NYAMIRA (Xinhua) — If Shem Makori was living in one of the Kenyan cities, he would have probably been exposed to some investment ventures to establish a strong foundation for his future going by his hard work.

But the village boy in his early twenties has spent most of his adolescent years tilling farms, carrying fodder, wood and timber and picking tea in the remote areas of Ting’a, in the Western county of Nyamira.

Attending primary school was unbearable experience for him due to harsh life in his home that he had to abandon books and go around the nearby villages taking up whatever that came by.

When you meet him, he is always in a hurry to go somewhere. Unfortunately, he has no phone and so anyone looking for him has to locate him physically or pass a word of mouth. He says a phone is a waste of his hard earned money.

But for the eight years the rather bubbly and relaxed Makori has worked, he cannot point to any investment he has ever made with his wages.

“What can you do here? We tried to raise poultry as a group but it did not work out,” says Makori. His wish is to make some inroads into the city or town and secure a clientele to supply farm produce.

In March, he joined a group of tea pickers where each member is contributing three dollars on the day of every month when they receive their pay from tea farm owners. They are seven of them.

“I want to save enough to start buying bananas and vegetables in bulky and sell them in the urban areas. The life in the village is extremely difficult,” he observes.

Makori is among thousands of illiterate youths in Kenya who are yearning for a better life.

Their chances of accessing any formal employment with good returns are even whitewashed by the fact that they lack any technical or tertiary skill to secure a well-paying job within a formal structure.

However, rural-urban migration is a concern to the Kenyan government as the able citizens move away from areas rich in resources which can be exploited to speed growth of the rural economies.

Initiating establishment of cottage industries and manufacturing firms in the villages is one of the ambitious agenda the government has laid out in its industrial medium term development plan as a way of not just catalyzing development in the remote areas but also create employment for the rural population.

Prof. Tom Nyamache, an economist argues that since the youth are pillars of development in any country, there must be a deliberate commitment from the government to productively engage them through programmes that expose them to various investment opportunities.

“One thing about creating a sustainable economy is creating a balance between equality and equity. You must endeavour to progressively pull up those who are on the lowest level of the economic ladder and it doesn’t matter if they are illiterate or not,” argues Nyamache.

The government is making efforts to empower youth by creating facilities enabling them to furnish their distinctive capabilities and thereafter exploit them to make a living.

On Monday, the government said they have established 152 youth centers across the country which could be developed further into centres for nurturing talents among the Kenyan youth.

Source:Xinhua