You did not ask to be in this situation and you certainly did everything in your power to avoid it. You did as you were told; rarely making mistakes but when you did, they assured you that to err is human and everything will be okay. You invested time, money and your abilities to build a foundation, following the blueprint laid out for you. Investment also came from people who believed in you and saw it as their duty to see you succeed. Some may have done this not because they felt it was their duty but because they believed that one day it would be your turn to take care of them. Now it’s time to cash in on all the hope, investment and promises they pumped in to you. Now it’s your time to shine.
First you have to write about yourself detailing your achievements and competencies. Then you have to look the part, there is a code and standard which has been set and you have to adhere to it. Finally you have to market yourself as a finished product, ready to achieve whatever task they give you. Hopefully if you follow all the rules you’ll get what they always said you would achieve. There is also the likely chance that even after doing what was expected you will receive consequences of events you are not responsible for. The painful and most common consequence is unemployment. Now unemployment is with you, a dark cloud over your thoughts.
You gave everything to gather all you could in school, hope still fresh as dew then it dawns that you owe the government through a student loan, you have to pay different government agencies a fee to get a variety of clearance certificates and your conscience is not at peace because you feel that you owe it to your guardians because they played their part. The system in this case is flawed but the society has made the youth look like the anomaly.
Usually in a movie the villain has a plan to cause mayhem. They work on it so as to inflict as much pain and anguish on people but just in time the police or a superhero or heroine saves the day. But for a graduate they are the villain who never had a wicked plot, the plan was executed by another party but the blame lands squarely on this innocent villain. Fresh from university or college they are subjected to standards that they were never going to be qualified for.
‘Baraka, we are glad that you applied for the internship position at our organisation but we are looking for a candidate who is currently pursuing a master’s degree to work as our research assistant, we wish you well in your endeavours’. Baraka is fresh from university with a bachelor’s degree but somehow he is not qualified enough for and internship or an entry level job. Baraka does not give up; he is not lazy and does not complain which are characters associated with his ilk. He is definitely a different type of villain. He gets an interview, but before he can attend the interview he is required to have clearance from the student loans body, police and the anti-corruption agency, an insurance cover for the internship period, a medical report after a series of tests and the sacrifice of a lamb without blemish. All this requirements come at a cost and he is not assured of getting the opportunity.
Our villains are not completely innocent. Some praise their tormentors or do not participate in voting. Our president blamed ‘youths’ in public service for corruption and I was left wondering how many of the public servants mentioned in corruption cases fall between the ages of 18-35. Baraka most likely looks up to the president or a leader in the opposition even when they clearly show time and time again they have nothing to offer him. Others have been able to crack the system and navigating through it with much success and do not see the need to speak up against the unfairness. I survived why not you? Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and stop complaining. What about those leaders who speak about self-employment and have spent all their working life in public service and have never owned a business but preach entrepreneurship. They don’t do much to nurture creativity by making the working environment conducive. Instead they introduce a million licences and taxes, hurdles to every small and medium enterprise. To add insult to injury, county governments owe the private sector USD $2.8 billion, the SME sector clearly affected. But the villain is the youth, when he tries to be an entrepreneur and fails, he is labelled impatient because he should have found a job and gradually gone up the job ladder. If he looks to be employed and has to depend on his guardians, he is labelled lazy or not creative for wanting to work as a ‘slave’ for another person and not pursuing entrepreneurship. There is hope, necessity is the mother of innovation and Kenyans have proved to be resilient. We have to work hard so future generations do not go through what we have experienced. Leadership has to do better or pave way for people who can do what is right. Rarely do leaders, especially in Africa accept responsibility for problems they have caused so citizens should actively be involved in challenging leadership, putting a face to the problem and voting out those who fail them. The largest group of voters fall under the age of 18-35, recognised by our constitution as the youth. This group has the power to make better decisions from MCAs who pass the budget at county level, to MPs who pass budget estimates and provide oversight over national government programs. If we get this right, the leaders will improve the quality of education, corruption will reduce and a growing economy will provide more opportunities. As all these factors come into play, a graduate will have the resources to work on self-development. But before we achieve these expectations, the youth should try their best not to let the desperation unemployment brings make them turn out to be the villains they have been made out to be.
Someone should read this