 Miki kwa social media, alakitu luka kamera 4 and give us your social media handles. Okay, check on Twitter, you're on Mentathon, Mentathon at Mentathon. On Facebook is at Mentathon and myself is at Oscar Kimani and the hashtag is Mentathon, hashtag Y254, channel. Okay, thank you very much. Welcome. Okay, so that was the second program. Is there another program? Yes, that program, which is now maybe very exciting, is called Youth Connect. Now we realized, as in the urban areas as young people, we have access to a lot of information that is not accessible for rural youth. The urban young person can always find a cyber in their area. They can always find somebody who knows, but you found that a lot of rural youth do not have access to these opportunities. And now the interesting thing is this, almost 100% opportunities for young people right now are available online. Whether it's help, is application is online, whether it's a job at PSC, the public service commission for government is online, whether it's a training, whether right now it's KYUP program, all those programs are available online. Sometimes these online facilities to help young people to go online and apply for those facilities are not existing. So the first thing that I'm doing is this, is just sharing information. And I know in the last one year, you have been one of the biggest proponents of help, especially for Tiva students, because I know help we know it majorly for Kampa students. But the ones who score between a C plane and an E, there is money from government that is not really accessible for many because they don't even know about it. So we have been one of the biggest, as mental and one of the biggest proponents of help to tell young people, even if you don't make it for university, government has money for you to go to college. And there are almost, I think 280 to 60 institutions that are approved by government to receive money from government for you to go to school. Even the students with an E, there are courses available for them. Yes, vocational training. Vocational training. Absolutely. And anyone who does a D plus and above can start from certificate and they can go to diploma and the same person actually can go to university. So that is the first thing you've been doing. But now what is most exciting about this year, we have realized not every area has these facilities. So we are building up digital centers across the country to help young people that if you come to this space, you will find 15 opportunities available for you. You don't have to go looking for the opportunities. We want to concentrate opportunities, the information about opportunities. But secondly, we want to give you a way you can apply for them. Because I've found almost 90% of opportunities for young people. Because it was about to ask the process of application. The process of application is online. Online, okay. So if you go on a website, you upload documents, but the problem is some of these applications, you can't even do the form. They are very, very tedious and they are heavy. So I had an experience of helping some young people from where I come from in Murangatu to apply for help. And they really traveled far to get a proper work in Saeba. So we asked ourselves, why don't you set up some digital centers? So we have got in two partners already and 2021 you're going to be setting out a number of digital centers across the country. And not just having a computer that has an internet connection. But when somebody comes over there and asks what is available, you'll find a list of 5, 10, 15 opportunities that you can try. Because the issue is not just having a computer in your house. The issue is, do you know what that computer can help you access? And that's now where the youth connect program is coming through. Alright. That is the final program. That's a FAD program. There's another program? No, just for now. So let's look at the coverage so far since... This year we're having an edition? Yes, we have an edition. So it's going to be the fourth edition. Yes, the fourth edition. So let's look at the coverage in the span of those four years. Yeah. So we have the red slots. We started with Elgea Marakot County. This image is always moving. So we started with Elgea Marakot County in 2016. In 2017 we did Elgea Marakot County. In 2018. And then 2019 we did like Kipia. We did Nairobi. We started the enterprise in Nairobi. We did Muranga County. 2020 we were supposed to have gone to West Pukot County. But corona happened. But now because corona is here to stay. But there is no post corona. Corona is here to stay. It's on new normal. So in 2021 we're going to do Muranga County, like Kipia County, Elgea Marakot County, West Pukot County and Nairobi County. And I'm curious how you're going to achieve that considering from the images that you've gotten to see. It's when it comes to the... Terrain. Yes. It's full packed. I can tell you, it's... You must love travel. You must love havelogistics to enjoy this. Otherwise the biggest job around organizing Mentathon is the logistical side of it. Because we have to get mentors and I always say we cannot get late going to meet high school students. We can't say an event starts at 8 and we land there at 10. So it's a very exciting, especially for me, very exciting planning for on the event. But now with corona we have to think technology and we actually I think I had even mentioned to you this before. We are trying to seek some few broadcast partners because if you cannot make two high school students, two schools to meet according to the many education rules, we can meet them on the screen because every school has a TV screen. That's for sure. So we have to be extremely creative. As I'm saying, corona is not going away. It is us to do that. So we will do a mix of events, what we call town hall events. For high schools we are almost getting the idea on how we are going to run it out. But I can assure you 2021, Menta on his back life, we cannot wait for corona to go away because it's not going away anyway. Absolutely, we have to learn how to live with it. If I come to Y254, please be very kind to us. Yes, we will be kind to you. You just have to approaches the right way. No, we are good at approaches. We have very good successes. I think part of our success, youth connect thinking, one of the things we do is we work with partners that help us achieve what you want to achieve. We work with people like Helb, we work with people like Kastner, we work with people like KCCA, we work with partners like Banks, we work with partners like even Kenjana, we work with partners like KMTC. We look for partners who have something to offer for the young people. So when you go and work with Helb, then Y254 is the best option for you. Now Y254 is the newest kid on the block. And the best option for you because it's all about the youth and their people. So you decide to work together with us, less than maybe 25 or 30,000 young people will be watching it for 10 minutes. So you do not lose this opportunity. At the end of it all, Oscar, this is a business. Let's look at it in a business angle. So how do you monetize? And I will come into that. So how do you monetize this? I can tell you, because of the expenses involved, number one is partners. So being an unprofit, we work with getting partners on board. But what we offer partners is number one on audience. This partners, that's what I was telling you, we get partners who have something to offer for young people. Kastneba have courses. They have a beautiful introductory course for even students who don't make it for the threshold of the main CPAs. So how do we let these opportunities available in Kastneba? Even SEC have the same. And we bring it to young people. So we work with complimenting partners who are looking forward to these young people coming on board. But more importantly, who offer a lifeline for these young people. That's number one. But secondly, we get a lot of kind donations. I mean, you have seen organization give us vehicles, give us drivers. And mentors are not paid, it's volunteer. So you take care of your transport, you take care of your accommodation. I have to be grateful to people like Strathmore University to give us a bus all the time. So the bus, in case you don't have a vehicle, if you get a Strathmore, you get a bus to Westpacot and the bus will bring you back after four days. So those kind of partners make the program to work. Because we are not seeking this as a profit venture. It's a social enterprise. So just want to make sure that the costs are paid. If the costs are paid and the young people are motivated, we don't even have to make a coin out of it. So that's a model we've been using. So it's a volunteer partner's model. Alright, that is on the high school aspect of it. Let's look at the second program. Mental health enterprise. So mental health enterprise still works on the same. That's an example. We work with the bank. So we work with the bank as a training partner or we work with a provider. Let's say I'll give you an example. Just for the sake of it, you find this organization has started this program for enterprise for them. What they are looking for is all these things what you have seen work for us is we are dealing with an enterprise-driven model in everything. So partners is still the best way that we get this to work. So at now, the organization we get on board, I'm very careful not to mention organization as you find I'm trying to scatter around it, is that the organization you work with whether you find a lot of institutions right now are putting up what you call a social enterprise model to their day-to-day business. So it is training young people, it's helping young people, but it's helping them do their day-to-day business. A good example is what if the government decides that they want to register farmers and what they do, they have this program and they get every young person wherever they are to be trained and they can go around with their cell phone and go and register farmers. Before the government would have done what, would have had to recruit and pay and all those kind of things, but every young person in their village has a smartphone with data, it is possible for that person to do that work more cheaply, but you give them a chance to do something because every young person is being asked for experience. When you're asking for your CV, two years of experience and I know for many young guys the most frustrating thing you think I'm just out of campus. You want two years of experience doesn't have to be a job. I tell young people in campus please do something with clubs. Lead a club somewhere, lead initiative somewhere. In your church, lead initiative somewhere. Wherever you are, there's something that you can do and you always tell young people the easiest way to get experience is to volunteer. There's always an opportunity nearby where we are to volunteer and you have seen many guys, you have pushed that direction to volunteer and they end up being so good, they end up being taken up. So part of even helping young people to see the opportunities around them around what you call youth, connect to telling them if you're a campus student and you're four months at home and you're back in in Muranga somewhere or you're back in Karachuño somewhere there must be a public institution somewhere where you are. Is it a school? Is it a hospital? Is it a government office? Just move in here. Just come in and tell the DO or the debt to come to commission I'm here to work. Tell me what I can help you with. No one will fail to take help. Volunteering. But that person, what do they do to you? They will train you. They tell you by the I'm going to wear new files and a stapler. I want you to have some of the skills that young people lack is even how to put paperwork right in a file. And I'm sure if you give somebody a job and they file so badly can you give them another thing to do for you? So tell me to those skills learn how to do paperwork learn how to organize an office learn even how to arrive early in the morning. The easiest way is volunteer. Wherever you are there's an opportunity wherever you are and I've seen many guys a guy comes to volunteer they end up actually getting paid for it. The issue is to get away from the traditional have to drop an application with a letter from school saying that I need to do in township as part of my fulfilment of my degree it sounds good but it is your degree not my degree. That's true. The issue is how can you do the same thing when you're better? A couple of challenges as we wind up? Challenges of course financing a huge program can be quite tight so myself and my co-founders when things get tight you get into pocket but the best thing about it is the motivation or the pay off for that is for us who are stuck in corporate for the whole year it washes you off the sins of corporate you know when you're working all of us are trying to be the lead to be the best and sometimes to knock some few guys off your way the beauty of being in front of students to speak is this it's not a competition no one gains from a mentor you actually pay for your own trip so what happens I've seen with mentors when you come from mentor or when you come from mentorship it cleans you up more you end up being the biggest beneficiary of your own story than those people you're speaking to because there are some of the things Michelle by now your bridge of water down and you don't think there is important so financing has been a challenge but what you've done is to overcome that is to work with partners and now beautifully you started seeing long term partners coming on board for us and just that resilience you're telling young people about we have been resilient for four years and now we have seen now even partners calling and saying hey can I work with you to do this program by now so I say right now we're not in too much of challenge selling a little bit but we want to make this a national program and you hope the government can even take it up and make it a national mentorship program because every young person needs to hear story of another successful young person ahead of them absolutely and I'm looking forward towards that and we can have this conversation again on that particular level and I hope I've recruited you to be a mentor I'm looking forward thank you very much so that is Oscar Kimmani Vice President Mentaton Foundation give us the social media handles again Twitter is at Mentaton Facebook is Mentaton myself is at Oscar Kimmani and hashtag is Mentaton hashtag Y254 Channel okay thank you very much Oscar Kimmani for creating time to be with us and having this conversation alright so guys make sure you don't have to be right back as we wind up and I'll be reading your comments so make sure you stay tuned right here on Y254 at Y254 Channel at Michela Shirazo you can find me across all my socials thank you