The State Department for Diaspora Affairs yesterday launched an inaugural Diaspora Jobs fair in Meru County that attracted hundreds of youth seeking employment opportunities abroad.
Speaking during the launch, the department’s Principal Secretary (PS) Roseline Njogu said the purpose of the fair was to bring together people with skills and ready for job opportunities abroad and the recruiting agencies who will link them with the available jobs.
She said this was in line with President William Ruto’s manifesto in addressing youth unemployment in the country by collaborating with foreign countries who in turn offer available slots for the country.
“We have about 520 licensed recruitment agencies and these can be found in the National Employment Authority (NEA) website and 14 crew recruitment agencies who are registered by the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA).”
“We urge Kenyans seeking job opportunities abroad to first check whether the agencies they are dealing with are registered by the two institutions before going forward to give them money,” Ms Njogu cautioned.
She added that in the last 16 months, her department has been very keen to weed out the unregistered agencies as well as punishing those that are registered but are not acting as per regulations.
“When we started, we had more than 1,200 recruiting agencies but currently we have only 520 after deregistering the ones that were not toeing the line.
This tells you that we are very firm in ensuring that Kenyans are not conned or mistreated by any recruiting agency whatsoever,” said Ms Njogu.
On the issue of ensuring that the welfare and rights of Kenyans working abroad are protected, the PS said that they have a board that looks into this and that they have already visited about 35 Kenya Consulates, Missions, and Embassies abroad sensitising Kenyans and issuing them with the right documents so that they can travel comfortably whenever they wish to.
“If you are keen, you will realise distress calls from Kenyans working in the Middle East have reduced in the last 16 months courtesy of our department’s efforts to ensure that their welfare is taken care of.”
“We also recently evacuated Kenyans in Israel when war broke out there and it is on record that Kenya was the first country to evacuate her citizens from South Sudan when war broke out. This is what our department is meant to do and we will not relent in protecting our people working abroad,” said Ms Njogu.
Her Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) counterpart Dr Esther Muoria said their main mandate is to equip young Kenyans with skills that will enable them to get jobs abroad.
She said they have already changed the curricula, ensured there are enough and qualified trainers as well as good space for trainees to acquire the necessary skills.
“We are actively listening to the diaspora needs in terms of skills so that we can equip our young people with the right ones and ensure that they fit the job market,” said Dr Muoria.
By Dickson Mwiti
