4,000 Youth Graduate with Skills to Further Kenya’s Development Agenda
Nairobi, Kenya, March 15, 2019 – Today, 4,000 Kenyan youth graduated from Generation Kenya with new skills to help them find and keep employment in high growth sectors and secure a prosperous future for themselves. Generation Kenya is a public-private program, supported by the U.S. government through its development agency, USAID, and in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and Safaricom Foundation. USAID Mission Director Mark Meassick and Generation Kenya CEO Ramakrishnan Hariharan presided over the graduation ceremonies.
“The U.S. government investments in youth are vital to our mission of promoting self-reliance and resilience among our partner countries, as well as to the goals of worldwide stability and prosperity that we all share,” said USAID Mission Director Mark Meassick.
The Generation Kenya program works closely with the government of Kenya and technical based institutions such as Technical and Vocational Education and Trainings (TVETs) to equip youth with technical and employability skills. Since 2015, Generation Kenya has placed 84% of the 13,000 graduates into meaningful employment through a network of more than 350 employer partners across Kenya. The youth attend 4-8-weeks of boot camp training in banking, financial sales, sewing machine operation, restaurant services, retail, and consumer goods distribution.
“The debate has always been whether the graduates coming from both the technical and institutions of higher learning are half-baked or if they meet the necessary threshold to be employable. This is exactly why Generation was established, to try and address the existing challenge of entry level skilled labour across different industries,” Generation Kenya CEO Ramakrishnan Hariharan.
Generation Kenya has grown from one training location in Nairobi in 2015 to 33 across 20 counties. The new graduates join a growing alumni network of 13,000 talented workers contributing to the growth of the Kenya’s economy. Of the 13,000 graduates, 57% are female. And, 70% attained a Grade C or below in the Kenya Secondary School Certificate of Education (KCSE), examination — a population whose transition rate from secondary school to tertiary institutions is low.
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Generation Kenya
More than 75 million young adults are out of work globally, and three times as many are underemployed. At the same time, 40 percent of employers say a skills shortage is leaving them with entry-level vacancies. Generation is a youth employment nonprofit with a dual mission to empower young people to build thriving, sustainable careers, and to provide employers the highly skilled, motivated talent they need. To date, more than 25,000 young adults have graduated from the Generation program, which prepares young adults for careers in more than 100 cities and 250 locations across nine countries. Generation works with more than 2,600 employer partners and a wide range of implementation partners and funders. The organization was founded as an independent nonprofit by McKinsey & Company in 2014. For more, visit www.generation.org
For more information on Generation Kenya contact:
Samson Gitonga, Communications Specialist, +254 729 039 189 or samson@generation.org
For more information on USAID support contact:
Kimberly Case
Senior Regional Development Outreach and Communications
+254 706 033 203 or KCase@usaid.gov