THE DISAPPOINTMENTS OF A 25 YEAR OLD KENYAN !!!

Poverty is a main challenge in Kenya as it is in most developing countries. The need for sustainable growth and development is essential for poverty eradication. Most young people strive hard to achieve their educational goals with the expectation of employment as their ultimate source of livelihood. This however most often than not does not come to pass. Most of them end up frustrated and result to crime as a way of survival. This does not have to be the case. The youth need to be educated on ways in which they can engage in entrepreneurship as a source of livelihood. The youth also needs to be informed that they don't have to seek employment after studies but they themselves can become employers. 

I am a 25 years old graduate from the University of Nairobi where I attained my bachelors in B.S.c Mathematics.  Sounds fancy, I know but it isn't all that really. I remember growing up with so many hopes and expectations. I had all I needed to achieve planned out and nothing was going to stop me. Yes, I was a bright child. I worked hard in school and I managed to enrol into the best high school and university that I could. It was a financial struggle for my single mother but it was all well worth it. I knew I would finish campus, get that white collar job and that white collar office. Don’t forget the white collar suit. Move into that nice urban apartment and get my first car by the time I hit 25. Life was going to be good.

Having already gotten to my target age of financial prosperity, not much has come to pass. White collar jobs, offices and suits have not been so forthcoming. I have come to view a personal car as a necessary but expensive luxury. Paying rent in a city like Nairobi is no walk in the park. I have not failed in all of these so don’t get too disappointed. I am done with my first degree. I actually was at the age of 23. But that also marked the beginning of my problems. After my graduation, jobs were not so forthcoming. I joined a job market that was flooded with graduates searching for employment and few employers willing to employ. Most potential employers I looked into did not understand what to do with a Mathematics graduate. Those who did were not willing to part with more than Kshs 20,000 a month.  Don’t bother looking for a currency converter let me paint that for you all too clearly. That is roughly $ 230 a month or £ 168 if you prefer.  With that kind of salary, I would only survive by being housed and fed by a close relative and the only car I could ever afford was maybe a toy car.

This was a sad situation for me and what made it even sadder is the knowledge that if employers are willing to pay a graduate that kind of salary, what about the semi-skilled youth who has no university papers. This is why the gap between the poor and the rich in Kenya is so wide. So many people survive with under a dollar a day while there are those few who will spend a thousand dollars in a day without blinking twice.

 

So I wonder when this will come to change. When will all the dreams of young Kenyans become like Lupita's , valid!