The Garissa Youth Express

 One of the many readers of this blog sent me this video which I found truly inspiring. It's so good to see some of our young boys and girls taking charge of their destiny and deciding to get involved in the leadership of this beautiful city. Come 2012, I hope to see at least 75% of positions at the Municipal level filled by 21-35 year olds. After all this age group predominates the voting bloc in this city. Should this sleeping giant wake up and realize the power that they wield , it will mean a new dawn for Garissa.


Garissa Youth Days from Alicia Sully on Vimeo.

Finally, I hope to categorically state that I'm not in anyway involved with G-Youth. However, I wish them nothing but success.

Clerics Vs Young Guns: The Battle for the Soul of Garissa

We all know the importance of Ulamaa and religion in safeguarding morality in society. The usefulness of youthful zest and energy in bringing about change with vigor and exuberance is undeniable too. And when the these two important pillars of society clash, the fallout can turn out to be intractable and damaging in the long term. So I was quite apprehensive when news of a dust up between  the "shyukh" and a group of youth who had organized an eid related event at the Government Guest House with the goal of bringing together young Garissians to sensitize them about drug abuse, Khat addiction, educational tutorials,  and group discussions on politics and clanism reached me.

The event organized by YM Media in conjunction with G-Youth was supposed to highlight the talents of our youngsters with performance of short skits, drama, comedy etc. They obtained a written permit from the Government Guest House Caretaker and were promised security by the police.

I am not sure how the Sheikhs got wind of the event but they swiftly issued a fatwa terming the event contrary to Islam and moved to threaten the caretaker with unspecified consequences if he did not revoke the permit.

Now, I do not wish to make a judgement but I'm sure you realize where my sympathies lie in this David Vs Goliath battle.

I'll summarize by saying this, the Sheikhs  need to careful not to be used by pseudo-ulamaa only interested in turning them into mere inert resources for their diabolical schemes. Lets hope that while mouthing their sanctimonious platitudes such as "Power belongs to God," they'll realise the philosophy of Do-or-Die cannot guarantee who does and who dies. They must stop playing the all knowing God and stop trying to control every facet of our lives. If they really want to fight evil, their guns better be directed at clanism and its evils for its that which will truly determine the success of Garissa County in 2012 and beyond. 

Garissa Youth Project Set for Take-off

Since the late 90s a lot of aid has been poured into Garissa and its surrounding localities. Most of it has gone down the drain without much impact. If a fifth of this aid was deployed effectively, things would have been much different today. Instead you have a cacophony of aid effort from multiple organizations that are uncoordinated and run by non-natives who are not ready to do the nitty-gritty stuff .

Garissa Youth Project is a local organization  funded by an international NGO (Education Youth Center) that has been started by local youth to mobilize their community and change the fortunes of locals in Garissa. Recently G-youth and other local NGOs  have received US $ 5M (Ksh 400 Million) from the American Ambassador, Michael Ranneberger to enhance youth development and capacity building.

It comes as no surprise then that G-Youth stakeholders have started a high school student empowerment project  in Garissa. They intend to hold career fairs for students, sensitize parents, link schools to career resource centers among many other things.

The schools that have been picked to participate in this pilot project are:

Garissa HighSchool
County HighSchool
Nep Girls Secondary School
UmuSalama Secondary School
Boystown Secondary School
Iftin Girls Secondary School
Tetu Secondary School
Khadija Girls Secondary School
Ikhlas Mixed Day Seconday school
Young Muslim Academy

G-Youth needs to lauded for this. Our students have always lacked effective career counselling.

 I hope part of the fund will be used to invest in ICT projects to make High Speed Internet connectivity available to schools so that our students can be in touch with the world.
Rwanda has been able to do this with great success and we ought to learn from them. Students in Primary schools in Rwandan villages have laptops thanks to the combined efforts of their government and the one laptop per child policy. However I'm not under the false impression that Kenya can in anyway be compared to Rwanda, a country whose government may not be of  the people or by the people but is surely for the people.