• Kazi Mtaani is part of the national government’s initiative to support the youth in more than 1,000 settlements across the country.
• Beneficiaries are asking the state to extend the programme until the situation gets back to normal.
Image: MERCY MUMO
For Linda Mweru, Kazi Mtaani is a godsend.
Introduced soon after the Covid-19 pandemic started, making the unemployment situation dire for sole family providers like Mweru, the programme was a most welcome opportunity.
Even before Covid-19, it was tough for the 28-year-old mother of one to provide her daughter and herself two meals a day from the proceedings of samosas and chapatis she hawked in informal offices near her Mathare home.
Mweru never thought she would ever get a job with the government.
But that was before the news came via her radio that President Uhuru Kenyatta had directed the National Treasury to allocate Sh10 billion to fund a temporary work programme for jobless youths.
The temporary work programme is the Kazi Mtaani Initiative.
It seems like this is what the woman who dropped out of college seven years ago to take care of her daughter was waiting for notwithstanding the discouragement from her friends and family.
“Just like those who discouraged me, I always thought government opportunities, despite the little pay, required connections with those who already had money. I had no connections,” she said.
Today, she is glad she gave a deaf ear to the naysayers. She is among the 53,733 youths recruited across Nairobi’s 11 sub-counties.
Since Mweru dropped out of college, she had been doing menial jobs, barely earning Sh200 per day.
To her, this is pittance compared to the Sh455 she is paid for each day worked for Kazi Mtaani. And the opportunity came at a time when she was almost giving up in life.
“I honestly do not know how I would be surviving during this period. Remember most people are not leaving their houses, so I would have no one to sell my samosas to. The government has really come through for me and I am eternally grateful,” Mweru says.
She prays that the government will extend the programme that is now benefiting over 280,000 youths across the country until the situation gets back to normal.
Kevin Chingo is also a beneficiary of Kazi Mtaani. The business administration diploma holder had been working at a hotel in Kangemi before it closed down due to the pandemic.
He had taken up the hotel employment after tarmacking for four years without landing a job relevant to his training.
“I only thought of getting into drugs immediately the hotel was closed down. Imagine you have worked at a place for a while then all of a sudden you have nowhere to go,” Chingo says.
The 30-old man thanks Kazi Mtaani for the far it has pushed him through in the trying Covid-19 times. He is grateful for being one of job beneficiaries despite the ballooning rate of unemployment.
“I could have been deep in drugs right now but I thank a colleague who told me the programme was hiring and pushed me to try my luck,” he says.
At first, Chingo had an issue with payment but after sorting out the problem, he is now happy.
The first phase of Kazi Mtaani was launched in April in Nairobi and a few other towns.
The programme is part of the National Government’s initiative to support the youth in more than 1,000 settlements across the country.
The recruits are paid only for the days they report to work, with the daily rates set as Sh455 for a worker and Sh505 for a supervisor.
The second phase started on July 13. Some 283,210 youths are engaged for 11 days per month.
“The Kazi Mtaani concept is the provision of social relief through job opportunities and hygiene facilitation to help contain the Covid-19 pandemic in informal urban settlements,” Housing Principal Secretary Charles Hinga said at the time of the launch.
Among the tasks the cohorts perform are tree planting, road clearance, unclogging storm water drains and the rehabilitation of pavements in urban centres, especially in the informal settlements.
Other beneficiaries the Star spoke to were also happy with the programme and hope that the government will consider giving them permanent jobs.
“There are no jobs and if this initiative permanently employed us, we would be more than grateful,” Kazi Mtaani supervisor Grace Mwilu said. She is among the 1,791 supervisors in the city.
A college diploma holder, Mwilu also asked the state to consider imparting lifelong skills on the youths for self-employment.
“We all know that the rate of unemployment is very high and Covid-19 has worsened the already bad situation. Much as we thank the government for coming up with this initiative, our hope is that it becomes a long-term programme for the vulnerable youth,” she said.
- mwaniki fm