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Young Adult Potential in Kenya

Being one of the largest slum in the world and having majority of the dwellers comprising of youths, it would be impossible to ignore them as part of the society. When one hears of Kibera in the media, it’s mainly the young adults that do appear in the media, whether on positive or negative issues in the society.

Let’s have a look at the potential in the youths in Kibera.

Kibera young adults are energetic. This can be seen in the kind of jobs that the young Adults do. Which includes working in construction sites, community projects like cleaning and reconstructing of waste places, pulling of carts, and political rallies of which young Adults are the ones used to campaign. This they do for long hours and even nights of which older people can’t withstand. It’s sad to point that the energy in young Adults in particular cases is misdirected thus most are used to do the wrong things in the society, like fighting with the political rivals, harassing residents in search for livelihood due to lack of job opportunities. This potential is in the young Adults but rarely tapped to benefit the community.

Etrepreneurial minds

Another potential in the young Adults is the entrepreneurial minds that they possess. Most of the micro- enterprises are begun and run by young Adults. Small shops and ‘hawking’ is something many opt for since not all can be employed. Others choose to lose hope in morality and end up peddling drugs to meet their needs. The mind is there but the resources unavailable and costly.

Creativity

ng if creativity is seen in the many artworks that have been done by youths in Kibera. During drug campaigns and AIDs awareness young Adults do come up with amazing ways of bringing out the vices in the society. Given the right information and resources, the young Adults will do wonderful things that are a benefit to the community.

Sporting Talents

When you walk around playing fields, you’ll be thrilled by the talents that young Adults possess. Young Adults will always be busy sharpening their talents in the sports world, and some do this as means of killing boredom.

Kenyan Youth Challenges

  • High mortality (STD, HIV, AIDS, etc)
  • Poverty - mushrooming slums
  • Premarital sex
  • Abortion
  • Early parenthood
  • Incest
  • Exposure to pornographic material
  • Drugs - abuse / peddling Child labour
  • High unemployment
  • Crime
  • Broken families
  • Lack of education

A lot of times these challenges have been too overwhelming and have left the young people in desperation.

These challenges are common to youth/ young adults across the border. However, we wish to emphasize on some of these which I feel are more pressing among the youth in Kibera and have resulted to more problems.

  • HIV/AIDS many of our youths still think this epidemic is a big joke and have continued to live highly immoral and irresponsible lives. We may be losing a generation to the epidemic.
  • Poverty is another major challenge. The families of these young people live below the poverty line, on a dollar and less a day. They can't afford even the very basic of life and have lost hope in life. As a result they will engage themselves in all kinds of immoral and ungodly activities to earn a living
  • Hopelessness. Due to poverty many young people have lost hope to live.

They need to know that Christ died and rose again that they may have life and in abundance. They need to understand that in Christ they have hope even when they think they have no future. We have the hope of the glory and we need to share and we are sharing the beautiful and precious gift of love to the people in Kibera that they may have a reason to live an extra day and a life time to fulfill God's promise for the lives.

 

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