The programme will employ 250,000 youths nationally
Image: ALICE WAITHERA
The Kazi Mtaani programme that is meant to employ 250,000 youths will be rolled out nationally next month.
The programme is currently being piloted in eight counties and will employ about 3,000 youths in Murang’a.
Youth and Gender Chief Administrative Secretary Rachel Shebesh said the youths will be stationed in highly populated areas with higher risks of Covid-19 infections.
She spoke in Murang’a while inspecting the rehabilitation of the Nairobi-Nanyuki railway line. Shebesh said the National Youth Service had been instrumental in places hit by disasters countrywide.
She cited the floods experienced in Nyanza region and the locusts invasion in Turkana. She said NYS has also been clearing towns.
On May 23, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced a Sh53.7 billion eight-point economic stimulus to alleviate the effects of coronavirus.
The President said the government had set aside Sh5 billion to hire local labour to rehabilitate public infrastructure damaged by rains.
Shebesh said her department has been fighting gender-based violence which she said has been on the rise.
“The increase in cases of gender-based violence is worrying. We have been conversing with counties to see how it can be dealt with because even though it can be blamed on the stresses caused by coronavirus, we have to put structures in place to fight it,” Shebesh said.
She added that her department has been consulting county governments, county commissioners and women representatives in a bid to establish measures to deal with the vice.
“We are calling out people to learn to live together. We need to start talking about these issues that when someone is violated, they know where to go and what to do,” she said.
Shebesh said she would meet Murang’a leaders to discuss whether the county could establish a ward in one of the public hospitals where victims can be admitted.
The CAS said they were fast tracking issuance of affirmative action funds including Uwezo, Youth Fund and Women Enterprise Fund to support Kenyans during the pandemic.
“In the last three months, we have given out money to the tune of Sh30 million to Murang’a women but we want to make it better, bigger and more targeted,” she said.
She said women have been using the funds much more than youths.
About 99 percent of the women, she noted, pay back the funds and that the average rate of payback for women enterprise fund is 98 percent.
“Youths have not yet understood that once they take the funds, they need to invest it and pay it back,” Shebesh said, adding that beneficiaries have been given a grace period of three months to to repay.
Edited by P.O