Over 500 youths from Kiharu Constituency are set to benefit from training in technical courses, courtesy of Mbiri Ward Member of the County Assembly (MCA), Bernard Ruiru, in conjunction with the Murang’a County Government.
The courses including plumbing, electrical, painting, tiling, welding and hairdressing, will be offered to the beneficiaries at Gaitega Technical and Vocational Training Centre, free of charge, for a period of between three and six months, even as modalities of equipping Kambirwa Youth Polytechnic to offer the same takes shape.
Speaking at Maragi Primary School, during issuance of bursaries as well as launching the empowerment program, Ruiru noted that over 1,000 youth had applied for the opportunities, whose application window came to a close on January 31, but only 500 will be considered for the first cohort, while the rest will be considered in subsequent intakes, since the program continues.
During the function, the MCA disbursed bursaries worth Sh.2 million to the needy students in all the day secondary schools in Mbiri Ward.
On youth empowerment, Ruiru was emphatic this was the surest way of addressing unemployment that was causing hopelessness, among the fraternity.
“We are committed to equipping the young people with the skills necessary to navigate the job market, earn a livelihood and even be able to create job opportunities amongst the scores of other unemployed youth in the country,” he said.
“We will gradually add on the number of courses so that we get our young people from the risk of getting into ruins of alcohol, substance abuse and lawlessness,” he added.
At the same time, Ruiru underscored the need for the youth to learn a skill or two as this will help them generate business ideas and break-up the dependency syndrome and over-reliance on the elusive white collar jobs.
Meanwhile, the MCA called on school principals, to bear with the parents who have not yet cleared school fees and let the affected learners, remain in school to cushion them from missing out on the precious school time.
“Let the children remain in school as their parents continue working out on modalities of clearing the remaining fee balances for their children,” he pleaded.
By Florence Kinyua
