 In 1999 the General Assembly passed Resolution 54 out of 120 which declared 12th of August International Youth Day and recommended that public information activities by organisers at all levels to promote awareness especially among youth of our program. Now which brings us now to the International Youth Day in our country which is being annual event observed globally on 12th of August in accordance with the UN General Assembly. This year's theme was about education. A lot has been done since 6th until today they were in Kuala. We will be getting to business maybe tomorrow to see what happened throughout the week. But for us here tonight we will be talking about the youth and leadership you want to see where are we, what is happening and do we have a future as youth. We move to our discussion tonight. I'll begin with Pithon because he's in the leadership. You lead a group of people Vijana Wongozini that is. There's a cliche in our country. I don't know whether it is in other countries where we say they use other leaders for tomorrow. Does it hold any waters? Thank you Hilary and also thank you for having me. I believe that the young people have a place in the society and that society exists today doesn't exist tomorrow. And so there are thoughts, there are things that we can contribute to that society. And a good example is in the old times you had the young people going out for war and you had the old wases who were acting as the vice-cancelors for a particular community. And so I believe that it's a wrong cliche that it's a misconception that we need to be 40 and 50 and 60 years for us to engage in leadership. So I believe and I'm a firm believer that the young people with all their strength, with all their creativity must participate in leadership for today and also for tomorrow. What's your take on this? We all know it's a lie. Because when you say young people are leaders of tomorrow, which tomorrow? Who is even sure about tomorrow? So I think for me this is part of what the older leaders have been using to hinder young people from accessing especially political power. So they will start saying you're leaders of tomorrow when in real sense we are leading even now. Young people are leaders in their different capacities, we are leading our companies, we are leading organizations, we are leading our houses, we are leading movements. And so it only comes in when you look at it politically. Otherwise young people are leading in so many spaces but they are not recognized because we know that the political space is where major decisions are made in this country. Dan, can you hold an office back in your county? Would you say indeed your tomorrow is now? First of all, happy international youth day and 12 years. My take on the same is that despite the fact that it has been said that the time for the youth is tomorrow, there is no tomorrow. Look at the history, what the youths of this country have done. If we start from Tom Boyer, what he did to this nation. Look at when Kibaki was given a position in Kani, he was a youth. Look after that generation what happened, the multi-partisan, the Raelas, the Madibas and now we are the next generation which we must know our course. We must not allow the elderly to say that the space for the youth is tomorrow. It is today and it is now. That is my take. Winnie, I'm coming to you with a different question but you also put your input. Now do you think the current youth have been given the necessary support they need in order to become the leaders? We all opt or dream to become as youth. Thank you for having me tonight to refer to the previous question first. I would say yes and no because my opinion is that all people have stayed longer in this earth. It is the young people who will inherit. So to some point yes they are the leaders of the future, those who will inherit. But to use this statement to hinder the youth who are already capable, who are willing to start now using that statement to hinder them is wrong. And the next question was... Are we given the necessary support that we need? I think no. One thing is if one youth is ready to go out there, seek for votes and all, he or she is diminished. He or she is told... ... ... I think the support is lacking. Secondly on finances. If a young man would go to his or her dad or the parents, could you fund my campaign? I don't know how many parents would go to that level. There are but I don't know how many would do it. So I think support is really needed and hearing them out is most important. A young person has views, opinions, but he is told no, I think you should listen to us. But if they are there, the opinions of the youth would be elevated higher. Yes because they have the wisdom. Okay. Pithon, you interact with young people in your group. There is this narrative that Tunazua to be politicians because we are young. If it's an organization or a company, my hard work will propel me higher. But now we have a political position that people have to vie for. There is an issue of inclusivity in line with the UN General Assembly that say this should happen to the youth. Do you think the current governments that have passed maybe in the last two times have given the young people the support they need? The support that I've seen and especially in the constitution I think is for women and the affirmative action which gave them I think the two thirds gender rule. But for the young people I haven't seen a lot. I've seen supporting the areas of empowerment through the national and the county governments. But there is little that has been done. If there has been any affirmative action in engaging the young people in taking them into leadership positions, I haven't seen none. Because my belief is and especially now that we have devolved county governments, I think we should have some reservation for the young people. A CEC for sports and youth needs to be a young person. It's as simple as that. And so we haven't been given that support. At least the constitution gives us the young people the right to buy, the right to join a political party. And yes, that's in the constitution but in regard to the national governments and county governments, I think they have done little and so we have been excluded completely. What's your take, do you feel? Because as an activist I'm sure there are those times you would go on the streets to say Vijana to Mekosaku Patikanapa. Like there's a question on the BBI team. People are saying there is no youth there. And it is something that people are not comfortable with. Now what's your take, do you feel like indeed we have been included in some of these particulars? I think inclusion alone is not enough. We do not want young people to be included in conversations just because they're between 18 to 35 years. We want meaningful engagement that even before the BBI was introduced, who are the young people that were brought on board to start this conversation? Because we just don't want people to come up with initiatives and coming up with agendas and say now we need young people so that we're just going to fill this space. So you look just for affirmative processes. And so they say they look around and say okay so we are four older people, especially men, and then now we don't have a woman. Let's bring Winiwabure. We don't have a youth. Oh I think you should bring an. So we are not, the kind of involvement that we have in this country is a sikening. You're brought on board to just tick boxes. So what I think from an activist perspective that needs to happen is that we have to engage youth before we come up with agendas during that period where the agenda is going to be implemented and even inclusion in terms of reviewing and monitoring and evaluating so we can hold each other accountable. But when you say for instance BBI and we know the history of BBI, right? The sad reality is that most of us especially at the ground do not even know what it's about. Right now I've seen as of two weeks ago I saw the engaging other young people and talking about the youth perspective on the BBI. But that comes in way after even decisions have been made. This morning I was hearing a joke in our usual youth meeting in Kambiyo and we were saying someone was just mentioning to us that referendum isha fa nika, you know, results are already known even right now. So what we are waiting for is the date to just do the process and then we'll have results. I mean it's not far from the truth that who are the young people right now in today being international youth today that do we even have young people between 18 to 34 kama siyende sana between 18 to 34 who are influencing decisions that politicians are making. Decisions like you said at the county level and at the national level, very few. And those few, the question is who are they? Kwa swapu wa takim tu akweni kabila yako, ama akweni relative yako, ama akweni yonisod or nephew or your friend. So engaging young people who deserve and merit is really important and that has not been happening. Before I let you go on that point, the youth that will be merited in this area, for an example we have young parliamentarians, a few of them just to mention like Babu, you know, and the rest, they are already in the leadership. Why were they not involved in the BBI? Because now the question is, do we have the youth who have what it takes to be in such a panel? Do we have such? You kidding me, he let me. You know we have, we have very many. But we are asking that question. We will always be on the streets to say we were not included, we were not consulted. What forums should we come up with or what effective forums should we have to ensure that we have been included? You know what is interesting is that a youth will not just wake up one morning and find themselves in a space. You will not do that. True. It is a lot of hard work and smart work. You just don't wake up and go because we have so many barriers including structural barriers. The time these people are even having this conversation, they don't engage the youth. That is what I started by saying, that you will have some of these amazing initiatives that you are having but because all the people don't want to give you a chance, they have their own interests. You will not even know that that kind of a thing is happening. So we will not be on TV or on radio but we don't know exactly what is happening. So I think for me the constitution is one that recognizes, and that's a step, recognizes young people 18 to 35 which gives even space for the female youth, young women between 18 to 35. Sometimes you see in us, oh you are a girl and then once you give birth, you are a woman like in Apatelanga for special young women who are youth, it's always very great. So just to answer your question, if the leaders of this country want to literally engage us, they know where to find us. If they put aside their greed and self-interest and selfishness, honestly we are everywhere to be seen. Even you are a young leader and all of us are... We should be moving that question to Pethon. I'll be coming to you much later. Pethon you have a group of leadership. Now how much has your group been involved by see the government in terms of coming up with policies and overseeing how youths will benefit from such things. We have tried as much as possible to actually engage our county and I'll give an example of an empowerment program together. Unfortunately we never received a lot of support from a county level but that doesn't discourage us. We will still continue moving forward with our agenda which basically is equipping the young people to enter the political space. So it's not really attached to the support and I think maybe this is the assignment that the young people should do that when it comes to political leadership we won't be given those positions on a silver plata so we should not have that expectation that because Pethon wants to buy for Senate or for MP in Embu that the current politicians will just give we know. So I think as we need to say that we need to be very aggressive and we need to be very strategic and very smart in regarding to championing the causes that we have as young people. So what we do we train and we equip young people because the government won't come to train young politicians so that they won't happen. So I think it's us the youth engaging with our fellow youth identifying the strengths and the weaknesses that we have and basically coming up together synergizing together for that particular cause because we are the majority and I think it's just that bold of action that we need. Alright and he has just mentioned that the older politicians will not come to tell you the path you should take but now how can the young people be effectively nurtured to participate in the national agenda in terms of leadership and who would be these mentors? Okay maybe I would expect the elder politicians pick one. For example the young MP from Meru I expect one of the elder MPs in his home would take him up take him through the leadership the way the structure of Kenya's government allow him to grow in this leadership so I think if leaders are not I'll use this one selfish you know your time is almost up you're going to go pick one young man or a lady mentor them to this to take up after you so I think that is lacking so much and maybe choose an example which may not be very good to people the embrace movement of the women they have decided they are going to take it we want 50% what about the youth also the remaining 50% maybe take 25% if you take that 50% where is the boy shout? it's 50% okay I have nothing against the boy child but you see the boy child will contest as a man but you already have the 50% so we are contesting against this other 50% so still the boy child has been left and this is the youth what should be done? I said an example I mean to actually use that get 50% it's still okay 50 women 50 men which is excellent if it comes in between there and there is no war actually women leadership is not a competition with men it's allowing a woman in her body in her nature in her esteem to participate don't tell me to just sit back because I am a woman I do not expect a man to tell me you were in the kitchen you're supposed to be there and I'm supposed to be here if I am able to let me be allowed the same as the youth if this youth is able has the competence because you just don't want any other leader any other youth because you are a youth to represent us you need to have character integrity so if all these things are there why not? alright Duncan what's your take? so actually my take on the same is that we as the youth we have been sidelined very much my sister has just spoken if we look on what is happening currently the young people were given power which we should be happy of but at the same time this young people we as the young people we have started just to say that they are not working they are our fellow youths so actually even if they are not at least they are not trying let us boost them on the same so the young parliamentarians they are the people who are supposed to help us because we are not in parliament they are supposed to help the young people so that they can bring deals you have asked my sister that for example where I come from what have we done as the young people to be included in governance you know what is happening is that these politicians the big fish you think they young because we are energetic and actually I can tell you a person who feeds your stomach controls you and that is what is happening on the ground so after an individual has been given something they usually call it hand out me I come on the ground that young person won't listen and that young person until we as the young generation realize that it is not all about the interest of the politician but the interest of all Kenyans and all young people so first of all you asked that how are we going to be empowered reaching these politicians after electing them we are the young people we can't reach them that is a fact so what you do after that so we don't have any option we plan for the next general election so that we can say let us choose the person who is on our age who has those leadership qualities who can represent us who we can reach at any given point okay that's a very good point because actually we have seen that we have people out there who are elected and they forgot about the young people they used even to throw stones now Python yeah it's true they were throwing stones after the election because some of them were not satisfied discrimination, corruption and some of bureaucratic policies have really bad young people from holding offices what do you think should be done moving forward let me speak about maybe corruption and the money factor that affects our politics that's number one if I am a young person and I'm buying against a big politician with a lot of money chances are that the money factor will affect the electoral process and I think my my way forward is and I still go to Vinny's point that we need to know our strengths if I know that 2022 I'll be buying I don't need to start in 2021 and I think as much as we are blaming the old politicians I think we as young people are to blame ourselves when I know that I'm planning to buy I need also to plan myself if I don't have the money and I have the vision in me then I need human resource I need people to help me and so sometimes I feel that aggressive because as we have mentioned it will not take you just saying that I want to be included in the political space you will have to sacrifice and it will cost you a lot so I think for the young people regardless of the opportunities we have not been given I think it's up to us to also get to ask ourselves nini nini tunataka na kenye tunini tunataka na generation year 2 and so when we have asked that question then we will know the work that is supposed to be done and then we will start doing it so to a large extent I think we as CC we are the people to blame because we have not been bold enough and we have not been courageous enough and for the young parliamentarians this is my plea for an old politician it will be hard for an old politician to leave his business to work with you but for the young politicians they owe it to their young fellows and young politicians too hold someone's hand kama dankana na takakuvai please babawinum shikiliye sakaja shikiliya because it is the young people who will empower the young people and it is us ourselves who will make a name for ourselves all right when Pithon has mentioned about finances and indeed this is an impediment to most of the young people in terms of campaigning and also there is that policy when you come see a governor you need to have or to be this kind of a person in terms of your worth but also there is this factor of education before we begin I just give you an example of maybe someone is in the rural he does very good an example in a society kofi society those who come from where kofi is planted we have a person who is a chairman he never went to school but he is performing wonders he can't hold any office because he has no education background such policies have bad many youths from holding offices what do you think should be done as a youth what if you take up that policy it is barring me what can I do to jump this policy I'll be ahead of the policy I can go back to school I'm still young get the desired qualification and then go for that seat however we know they are leaders who are leaders by themselves in stature whether with education or not so I'm thinking this policy needs to have to be checked again so as to allow the youth with different dynamics to also be included on the table so I think the youth just need to come out and express themselves even as this policy is made maybe someone would have said this is barring this and this particular set of group how about we checking again in this policy so I'm thinking it's possible whether with the policy or not alright our population constitute of youth and women being the majority but the question still remains why haven't we taken over why haven't we what is the role of the youth in the economic development especially in the urban centers thank you for asking that question and I was really hoping that you ask something in that line so tell you yes we are majority as young people and as women and I'm happy to be speaking for both for being youth and being a woman and the truth is like I said before you just don't wake up one morning and go for political leadership because let me ask you so tell me the three biggest political parties in Kenya today one Odium Jubilee any other Waipa who are the party leaders all men right at least all the men that is where the problem starts that we have persons political parties in Kenya are not just vehicles to help you ascend to power but their individual property to people like I wouldn't go into Odium right now and you know rise as I am expected to because there's a lot of politics within the political parties that does not easily allow young people to get into it and one of the things is the financial support like the financial resources that you need money to get into the party you need money to start campaigning you need money to run around you need everything and the Rayang person who is only 20 with this big vision of being a member of parliament for your area so the truth is young people have good ideas they have the time they have the energy just because they do not have connections to the political parties so this problem is very deep in the way out for me for young people to decide and say now we've seen where the problem is that is political parties just part of the problem and the fact that we do not have enough resources but also it is high time for us to now say I actually agree with you when you say that we need to throw ourselves out there that let's throw ourselves out there but not only as individuals we come as a team and say as young people we are about 290 who are going to vary for these posts in our different areas so that when we meet in Bunga we have a critical mass because it's not point of having an individual 2 or 3 young people to get into power and then once you get into parliament you can't change any bill you can't strengthen any you can't pass anything so it's not just about having specific young people to get up there but we need to have a critical mass so many of us so that when you get into parliament we are conscious enough and you can be able to introduce and pass bills as needed alright I'm afraid our time is up I didn't know we had a lot of time but anyway your final comments I'll begin with you Duncan what do you think or what is the future of the youth and by the way what would happen if we have maybe a 30 year old person becoming the president briefly as we finish for now I can say the future of the youth is luminous and if we we as the young people realize that we have elected leaders who are our mentors and they've become tormentors then we should kick them out and if we elect a young person then I'm sure the future of this country will go for because he or she the young person will bring new ideas on the table which can help this country alright I've had that arming was our mentors becoming our tormentors they should be here alright we for me it's very simple this is the time this is the time for us to take over and literally taking over everywhere they've been showing an example as in the political space for the last 30 years and I felt personally offended when one of our senior persons in this country Mudia Worifu for God's sake sometimes you get a point where you need to rest, you need to relax so I think for me everybody who has been in this for this long it has not changed anything this is our time and as young people let's get up and stop complaining let's now just stop organizing, let's start organizing and move it forward it's unfortunate they don't retire they always give in later duties alright, tweet me and yes I think the youth is a high time we come out from behind the scenes we'll be in front of the scenes actually make the scenes change the scenes to our own liking to what we can handle and let us support each other if Winnie is able why shouldn't I support her but we also need to look at integrity not just any other youth because any other youth will come and we just follow the other trend but a youth who has integrity it's possible if a country can vote in a DJ Kenya can vote in a youth 30 years or even below wonderful, Python your final answer yes so every generation has this opportunity so the young people who are there in the 80s 90s they fought for multi-party democracy and so it is us I think we are the ones who have been equipped with the tools of fighting tribalism and corruption so we not only just need young people as Anna said but we need young people who are visionary like the likes of Tom Boyle and Thomas Ankara we also need young people who have values and young people who are above reproach and they have character so I believe that it's not just about just removing the old politicians but also trying to tell them that we are not only addressing the issues of the young people but you also addressing the issues national issues from health from education to corruption and everything else so I totally believe that this is our time for Vigiano Wongozini and this is the time for the young people to take power and just to decide the destiny of this great nation of Kenya alright thank you so much ladies and gentlemen for coming they have been my guest Duncan who has said mentors who are tormenting us should be let go and Winnie an activist she is saying time is now and if we voted which country voted for the DJ then we can have our 30 year old as president that is Winnie that's Ann Mwangi and Pithon we believe time is now many things for keeping it Y25 for coming up next is Y Mashariki DJ Tiska is very much ready and Ken Relbis who will be joining him later in the program my name is Dereva Hillary I will see you again probably tomorrow have yourself a very good night