The Chief Administrative Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Anne Nyaga, has announced plans by the ministry to institutionalize Youth in Agriculture unit which will ensure sustainability of 4-K club activities.
According to Nyaga, once in place, the unit will be responsible for developing and periodically reviewing activities of the 4-K club and the Young Farmers clubs which are currently being rolled out in primary and secondary schools throughout the country.
The unit will also play a critical role of ensuring that the clubs, which have been dormant for more than two decades are active.
“We are institutionalizing the unit for purposes of continuity of the activities so that we don’t also have the clubs collapsing again like they did in the past. Institutionalization is important because it ensures that we have timely interventions of the programming around these clubs’ activities at all levels,” said Nyaga.
Nyaga said that the ministry was also putting in place a seamless process that will promote youth agribusiness programs through the Enable Youth Fund once they transition from institutions of higher education.
She said that through the fund, the government is hoping to tap and sustain some of the agribusiness initiatives that had previously gone unnoticed. According to Nyaga, so far 520 youth start-ups have qualified and are undergoing evaluation before they can receive financing from the program.
“We have structured the programs in such a manner that we don’t have a gap. We are ensuring that we have three programs 4 K-club, Young Farmers Club and Enable Youth Program that will then cultivate interest from as early as primary school, then they transition to youth where we support them by giving them finances to start their businesses when they come of age,” she said.
The CAS was speaking in Nyeri County during a sensitization meeting that brought together county leadership, representatives from the ministry of education and county executives in charge of education, youth and agriculture departments.
The exercise which will end on Monday next week, is currently on-going in 11 other counties to ensure that the critical stakeholders are conversant with the revamped 4-K club model.
“We are seeing to it that the county coordination committees are formed in every county to ensure the successful roll out of the 4 K clubs across the country. From there we will move to the next stage where we will be working on training the trainers of trainers(TOT) who will cascade the knowledge in the schools so that we can have the children successfully set up the clubs in their primary schools,” said Nyaga.
In June this year, the President launched the revamped 4-K clubs in a bid to give learners in primary and secondary schools basic knowledge in agricultural production.
Unlike the old 4-K clubs where more emphasis was put on agriculture, the remodeled clubs have expanded to include additional thematic areas that will promote civic engagement and citizenship, healthy living and nutrition, and promotion of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).
The CAS also said that they expanded their scope to include a Presidential Reward System which will recognize the most outstanding groups and a dress code for the different cadres of patrons and members.
By Esther Wangari
