 Welcome back to why in the morning and if it's Tuesday it's entrepreneurship Tuesday at Y254 channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle Ashira is where you can reach out to me across all my social. In this particular session we look at tourism in Ambo County and opportunities available for the youth. So if you've been to Ambo County you'll agree with me it's fantastic. The land there so fatal beautiful sceneries and if you're also love of hiking and Dr. Johanna's also told me that there's a lot of other activities that you can actually engage in like zip lining. In studio I am joined by Dr. Johanna Mwende Kema. She is the Ambo County Minister for Trade Tourism Investment and Industrialization. Thank you very much for creating time Dr. Johanna. Thank you Michelle. So in a brief in a very in a very brief way Dr. Johanna so what was your previous portfolio in Ambo County before you but to take the activities as the minister county minister for trade tourism investment and industrialization. Thank you Michelle. I have been in in a couple of departments. I started out in 2017 as the county minister for gender children culture and social services and then moved on to education later moved on to health and I'm right now coming from youth empowerment and sports. Yes. Okay. For someone who's watching this our conversation right now and I've never been to Ambo County. What would you tell them and tell us a couple of beautiful sceneries that you can find in Ambo County. I'll tell them that Ambo is a land of opportunities. Ambo is a beautiful county with a lot of endowments, natural endowments, beautiful sceneries all across Ambo North, Ambo East, Ambo South. We have very many tourist attractions and don't forget Ambo sits right very close to Mount Kenya. So one of our attractions is just that we are on the southern route to Mount Kenya and as you go to Mount Kenya through Ambo you come across beautiful lakes, the Karas Lakes. There are three lakes on a roll. The Ambo South, the Mount Kenya South route through Ambo happens to be the best and the shortest to Mount Kenya. We are just about 22 kilometers from Mount Kenya. Ambo County is home to, of course, Makademia. It is home to some of the world's best coffee. I think we do, we are the top, one of the top coffees in the global market. We produce a lot of Makademia nuts. We are also too gross. Ambo County is home to one of the biggest game results, the Muya game result. And we host two of the big five. We have the buffalo and an abundance of elephants. Ambo County, we also host five out of the seven fox dams. We have a beautiful, beautiful Kenara beach down in Rakanau. That's in Mary South. Ambo County, we have a beautiful camp called Ndunda. Ndunda in Kiembo means fruit and at Kamdunda you have the biggest swing in Africa. Swings your stress away right there. We also have a zip lining at Kamdunda. Ambo County is right now hosting a premier movie called Medicine Man. Oh yes. Yes. And through the Medicine Man, we are, which I would like to appreciate the Kenya Film Commission for funding. We actually been able to give a lot of youth jobs through the producer Betty Kazungu. And she's employed a lot of youth in that. We have a talent academy at Ambo County to the youth. That is the best news, isn't it? It is. It feels like definitely Ambo County is the land of opportunity. It is a place to be. We have a talent academy and I think we are one of the few talent academies in this country. Believing me in the Eastern region, I don't know of any. So far I'm not sure there's any other county that talent academy. And through the talent academy, our youths have been well empowered. Recently we started something called Mwegunye for the youths. It's a space where the youths that are talented in creative arts, drawing, painting, that kind of art, they are finding business. Does that fall under the talent academy? It falls under the talent academy. But as you know, because we are one county, Mwe County, we work together, we are interconnected. So while the youth department is the one that is tasked with empowering youths in terms of skills, in terms of opportunities, at the tourism department we realize that we can actually loop in the youths with their talents and market their talent, market their artistic creations and now they are making business. We are actually looking to linking them with external market. And they are making good money. For someone who is equally listening to us and they will be wondering how much of an effect has COVID-19 impacted this particular program and also looking at the tourism sector. So what is the impact of COVID-19 like on the tourism employment also? Thank you, Michelle. Now as you know, COVID-19 first of all caught everybody unawares. Unfortunately, when disasters happen, they just happen. As a tourist tourism department, we found ourselves caught up. One, you know tourism depends a lot on people traveling, people moving from place to place. When people were locked down, when people were constricted from movement, then it meant that they could not tour as usual, they could not travel, they could not visit and therefore that way then it's like business came to a standstill. But then we keep going. Initially we thought this was going to end shortly but then it's been on and on and we realized we needed to do something and that's how first we gathered the youth and said what do you have? We realized they have something that they could work on as individuals and bring to the market and that's how we came up with the Mwegunye arts. They call themselves Mwegunye arts. Mwegunye means shade in Kiembu and we also started thinking film is very interconnected with tourism and you can do, you can develop film from your living room, from wherever. We have something as simple as your phone. Yes, so we started encouraging our people to do film, to come up with film and thanks to the Kenya Film Commission with whom we are collaborating right now, we have an MOU and through the guidance and support of the Kenya Film Commission we found our youth getting together, producing short films and benefiting from them. We also do appreciate that when it comes to business you look for the easiest route to making money because business is about trading, it's about selling something, service, selling goods and so we came to realize that armed with skills, with film production skills, armed with talent you just need to tweak something very small and get into business and so our youth in Nambu County a lot of them, quite a number of them have been trained on film production. Some of them have come back to the talent academy and they are honing their skills in theater, in music, in different talents and that way then we have kept them busy and we have also helped them get into business. On the other front I would say the traditional tourism has been well, very well constrained. We had hoped that after what looked like COVID had ended that we would pick up but it's not looking very good but we are optimistic and so we are also now beginning to say okay we have COVID compliance regulations and we need to work out to see how this fits into business because if COVID continues and people still have to eat, people still have to do business, people still need to move, at least the elephant will not tell you, go back, you shouldn't have come you can wear your mask and still meet the elephant, you can wear your mask and still meet the buffalo. Absolutely and also go to this beautiful scenery. Yes, yes, yes, some of the activities like ziplining don't need crowds and you can zipline five meters away from one another and enjoy yourself and enjoy yourself. So I think all is not lost, there's a lot of hope and for us we also have lots of hills, we have lots and lots of rocks, you told me earlier that you've been to Embu. We have an abundance of rocks and waterfalls. In fact I think the next round when we review our waterfalls, so let's go back to the talent academy, who is eligible to be part of the talent academy, is it just the youth from Embu county and what is the procedure for these young people to get in the talent academy and are they required to pay any sort of in-amount? Let me pay a tribute to his excellency or governor, Martin Diego Ambara. That is actually his vision and he said no the youth don't have money, the youth are looking for opportunities. Absolutely, very true. The youth needs space where they can grow their talents, where they can be supported and therefore our talent academy is absolutely free for Embu residents. Guys you just hear that, so if you are from Embu that is an opportunity for you. Absolutely free and also we have experts, the county government has employed a lot of experts to support the youth, we have experts in film production, we have experts in music, experts in the spoken word writing anything you want. We are powerhouse. So they just have to show up. They just need to show up. Yes. All right, so the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife in mid-March 2020 set aside 500 million Kenyan shillings for the country post COVID-19 recovery plan, what are the mitigation measures plan, what are the mitigation measures are there to provide strong support for the tourism sector? Well, our speakers is the Embu county because we are here to see the money. Absolutely. We are here to see the money, I believe it's still on the way and I pray that it arrives in good time for us to mitigate. But as a county one of the things that we are doing is to open up some of the routes like I've told you that we are the shortest route to Mount Kenya. Oh yes. And that route is actually very friendly. It's the route you'd want to take if you're a lazier person. It's a route that is friendly to the elderly persons with the you know, physical challenges. It's very friendly. But it is a route that is not used, that has not been used and partly because it is yet to be cleared. So one of the things that we're looking to doing is to clear that route and we're also looking at expanding, you know, we're doing a big campaign for the mayor game reserve. One of the challenges which is not directly related to COVID is that somehow, you know, when people have some of these endowments, natural endowments, they're just there, you know. They're just there, they're just part of us. So for a long time we did not quite focus on it, but now we're beginning serious campaigns around marketing and mayor game reserve. I'm sure maybe of late you've seen that we've increased traffic that side, we've increased some communication on social media. Recently we had a big team of two operators from Nairobi, more than 54 two-odd operators actually came to Ambu to just visit the game reserve. And so those are some of the things we're doing. Also places like Nairobi beach, you know, beach that nobody really bothers about. So we are getting our feedback onto the ground and we're seeing that even the COVID period has given us like time to think, to refocus. And because business has been low in many areas, then this was one we also realized, okay, here is good business which needs very little and which people can also do while they're wearing masks and while they are still going through the COVID challenges. So that is what we're doing. And we also, like I've told you, focusing on film, I have told you about medicine man, it's a big thing. We are going there, we are going there, we are getting there. I know that you were on site, was it last month? Like a few around late last month, you were on site with the guys, with your team and also cut a CEO of also the Kenya Film Commission and everything you guys come up with that amazing. Tell us all about what's the medicine man all about. Just briefly, as you move forward. The medicine man is Beticabungu's production. Actually, it talks about, it's like a conflict between two brothers over, it's about modernity, modern medicine and traditional medicine. And one brother believes so totally in traditional medicine, the other one believes so totally in modern medicine. And so this sort of conflict with one thinking, no, no, no, you can't go that route, you can't go modern medicine, we know this traditional medicine has worked or through, why are you trying to pull the people away from traditional medicine? And the other brother thinking, you can't go there, it's too late. We've been through this for many years, now we need to grow up, we need to join the rest of the world. So there is a conflict. Now for the rest of the details, please watch the movie. We'll watch the movie and it comes out. And then one thing that I want to congratulate you and your team is the fact that the whole production team is full of young people. I've seen images and also on Facebook and it's just filled with young people. And you know what, let me tell you, it's in Kiyembu. So all those young people you've seen there, they are speaking in Kiyembu. I hope they'll be subtitles for us. Oh yeah, we'll do that for the, of course for the sake of the rest of the population, but we're very proud that this is done in Kiyembu. I know many people, many young people especially have neglected mother tongue because they think it's not the in thing. It's not the in thing, but you know what, mother tongue is the in thing still. Embracing on culture, telling our own stories. Yes, when you tell your story in your own language, it feels sweeter. It speaks to the soul. Yes. It speaks to your people. Yes. So what are some of general recovery pathways for actors in the tourism industry? People who own companies to and travels and they've just been hit so hard during this time of pandemic and they're just trying to get back to the business. I'll tell you something. The reason sometimes they suffer so much is because we keep looking at what is lost. If you can just turn, there will be an open window the other side. And so I would encourage people to not continue focusing on what is going, what is gone, what is lost. Let them figure out if this is not working, what else can work? If you keep in chickens and you've realized chicken disease is too common in your place, try some pig farming, try some fish farming. So yes, there has been a big downturn, but all hope is not lost. There is hope. And like I'm telling you, we just hosted more than 54 two companies in Embo. What does that tell you? They're looking up, they're beginning to recognize that there are some other places. Maybe you are used to taking tourists only to verify destinations. If you're wearing a mask and you're traveling very far, definitely you'll be very, very tired. But Embo is just down here. It's just two hours from Nairobi. And so two operators are beginning to look elsewhere, to look to different routes from where they traditionally have been taking tourists. And we're also looking at tourism from other perspectives. And then the other aspect is getting more of the, I don't like to call them lower populations, but the bottom of pyramid people, populations, people don't think about them for tourism. But you know, they are a big, big deal for tourism. And I'll tell you why. First, wherever that tourism, wherever you're touring, you're going to, there will be people. How are the communities behaving? How are they receiving the guests? How are they behaving? What is the security situation? What is the culture? What are the cultural aspirations of those people? What are their attitudes to guests, to visitors? All those things, if you try to pull them together, you can gain much more. You know, you can begin to pick up tourism. So for us, and you asked about how we're trying to recover tourism. And part of it is just going down to the village, getting back to the people and helping them appreciate nature. Appreciate that tourism is not for the person coming from very far. It is also theirs. Domestic tourism. Yes, domestic tourism. Helping them appreciate that they are also players in the tourism industry. Remember, like I keep saying, even an individual is a tourism site. I want thousands of people who visited South Africa to just take a look at Mandela live. You know, yeah. Just to set eyes on Mandela. So was in Mandela himself a tourism site. He was. Yes, and so people as individuals can also be tourism sites. And so other than now continue thinking when will the flights, whatever start flowing, it is time to say from Nyeri to Enbu is just about an hour. Let's go to Enbu. Let's go to Nyeri. Let's tour the Raka is just next door. I think we need to come up with another formula for intercounty tours and so that we continue supporting our tourism. But the locals themselves, if they have the necessary fire, tourism can stand even in these COVID times. So we are working on a strategy to get the community members right at the lowest point, the smallest village to appreciate tourism. And we're also digging deeper to see what is it within the communities that can be foregrounded, that can be improved so that the communities and so the community members begin to appreciate and to interact with tourism in its original form. And then once they do that, then they can also begin to support environment. One of the initiatives also is to gather the communities, to environment or conservation. If they plant a tree, one tree, one tree there, one tree there, one tree there. Eventually you have a forest within the village and people will integrate, interact more and tourism will thrive that way. Absolutely. Yes, imagine if you have a thousand people visiting a little community park every week and paying a little money, that will give us eventually more than a couple of tourists coming from another country that will come just once a year. Yeah, the exposure will be immense. Yes, and then I'd like us to just debunk this theory that tourists are people from afar, but tourists are people from people with other colors. So we should just embrace the fact that we as Kenyans, we can also tour our different counties and enjoy ourselves in those scenarios and the wildlife absolutely. So one thing that I've actually identified which you're just talking to, one thing that I can pick, you are very passionate about these particular projects. Overway of just influencing someone to just actually visualise the whole project and it's very persuasive and for that I, it's amazing I guess. So when you look at the whole situation of COVID and the situation in tourism, I would like to move from that but as we wind up on this particular session of looking at COVID and the impact, let's look at how prepared are we for the future, for the uncertain future when it comes to tourism back in our humble country. Thank you. I'll say humble county we are prepared. Remember humble county I forgot to mention that we are one of the hospitals, our humble teaching referral hospital is one of the best in the country. Actually I think we're just next to Kenyatta hospital, next to Kenyatta national hospital. You know what, humble teaching referral hospital has brain surgeries more than, I think we have done more brain surgeries than any other hospital in this country and recently we put up isolation centre. We have good enough facilities for isolation, COVID-19 isolation wards and we are up to the game. I would say in terms of preparation we're ready but I would also want to say God has been gracious to us, we haven't had as many cases and while this be the case I would like to urge citizens of humble county and the entire country to just continue being vigilant. We cannot afford to be careless and I know when there are prolonged disasters, when disasters are prolonged people have, there's a sense of fatigue that sets in and people begin to feel like ah, this is taking too long, it's too much, you know, no, no, we've been doing it for too long. I would like to tell Kenyans, let's be serious. Let us not give up, let us not slow down, let us not slacken, we need to keep the fire until COVID is out and out, kabisa. Right John. Yes. Okay. Yes. So Dr. John, from your observation and I would like to find out, so from our training institutions we have, are they offering essential skills, facilities, that is in terms of technology to prepare just to prepare our students, our youth to just deal with challenges when it comes to the market demand when it comes to employment. Okay. Thank you, Nishon. You know, one of the issues of the youth in this century is the lack of soft skills, I would say. Many youths... Lack of? Soft skills. Okay, yes. Many youths, they have trained, they have the hard skills, I'll call them. They were trained in technology to do this and that and that. But they don't have the software that moves that skill from where it is to the market. They don't have the skills to place their skills on the market. You get me. They lack the skills to interact with the market. Appropriate skills. For instance, there are very many youths today that cannot communicate and I'll give you an example. A youth walks into my office and says, I want a job. Wow. I want a job. I want a job and this youth has his trousers turned up and his shoes unpolished. Yes? And he wants a job. What is he armed with? Become fine, intelligent, sharp, good grades, but grades alone cannot sell you in the marketplace. And so what I would like to encourage our youths to do is to equip themselves with the soft skills because the soft skills sell faster than the hard skills. What do I mean? The first time you meet somebody, you don't ask, do you have a degree? You say hello. Yes? And they respond and based on how they respond, you can carry on the conversation or just quit the conversation. Isn't it? Yes. That's what I mean. A lot of our youths are not able to communicate. They don't have the right words. They don't have the right tone. They don't have the right rhythm. They don't all these things. And then they also lack interactive skills. They lack social skills. They lack skills of empathy. I was in the bank some time back and I was expecting and I said to these youth, excuse me, can you please just pay for me this bill? And the young man looked at me and said no. That is clearly a lack of social skill. If our youths can agree to learn what they need to learn, apart from the big coms, the IT, the whatever all this, while they have the soft skills they would be able to sell. I believe there is still work. There is enough work. But also the matter of integrity. I was speaking to some youth and they said, one of them said, you know, in my class, everybody is looking to graduate and go get bribes. Go take bribes. They want to be rich and they realize that they cannot be rich unless they take bribes. I said, oh how sad. Wow. So integrity is a serious matter and I think any person, any investor when they see a youth who has skills and has integrity, they will go out of their way even to invest in that youth. But the reason people will not be bothered is because you have just, it's like you have a shoe, your shoe on the wrong foot. Your aunt is such good training on one end. You go straight A's, your first class owners and everything. But on this other side you need sanitization. You need to sanitize. A few things. Yes, it's a community. To be able to fit in. Most important, two things. Get the skills and the soft skills. Yes, get the hardware skills as well as the software skills. The soft skills will take you far faster. Yes. But the issue of integrity is a serious one. Many of the youths don't want to work that much. One thing is going faster. They want things yesterday and they want to live their future now. I want my future now, here and now. No need to wait. Life doesn't work like that. Seriously. Very sure, very true. Still on that note, take us to some of the most essential leadership behaviors needed in a crisis. Wow. Quick thinking. In a crisis situation you must think fast. In a crisis situation and let me begin by saying before you get into the crisis situation you must see the crisis coming. Always as you live your life you must always know in the event of crisis what would I do just like when I get into this building somebody should have shown me the fire exit. I'm so sure we indicated some of it. Yes, yes, yes. Fire exit, yes. I clearly saw the fire exit and it is not that I'm expecting fire but fire can happen anytime, isn't it? So that is one skill. Preparedness. Knowing that it can happen. Quick thinking. Decision making. How fast do you make the decision? Look. You have been told there's fire that has started outside. Are you going to complete this program? You have to make a decision to run. Yes. To leave the building. Yes. The skills of even communication. How do you communicate and who do you communicate to? If there's a fire you will call 999. You're not going to communicate to your mother who is very fancy. I hear there's a fire that is starting outside. You will figure out who to communicate to. Yes. And then you must always know as you communicate what are you communicating? What is the message? What are you? Yes, if you're the leader what are you instructing? Now as a disaster expert one of the things that I learned is that you must always have the plan for the crisis. Yes. Before the crisis. Before the crisis. When the crisis happens it's not the time to call your team to say what do we do. You should already have a demobilization plan. You must already have a plan for in the event this and this happens and usually in disaster situations you can almost based on data you can tell what disasters are likely to happen except this one this Wuhan disaster. Yeah, that one you can see. Yes, we didn't see it coming but I'm sure the people who work in the health sector would have data relating to this kind of disaster and therefore communicating making the decisions and then you must have the resources also to deploy for the disasters. Right immediately after the COVID was announced you saw the president come up and say concessions. Yes, tax relief. That is part of the plan in the event so that you relieve the citizens of the pain of losing jobs and having to pay more like you're working if three, four of your relatives lost their businesses they will definitely eat you in your house. Yes, and so exactly she was very well aware of that and you also must have a plan of where to get what. You know, if there's a crisis of this kind where do we get medication where do we get what help if it's a fire where is the fire brigade where do we get the fire help where do we get the firemen are the firemen alert are they awake are they on duty all these things must be in your purview so that when things happen you can quickly deploy what you need to deploy Okay then if you're leading a team do they know what they should do like if they run out of this building where's your fire assembly point for instance Yes, so that when you run out of the building you go to the fire assembly point and that Yes, so that the plan the communication and the understanding of every person on what to do the reason we say run to the fire assembly point for instance is so that people are not left looking for others who are already out very much so they know quite well so just winding up so I would like to find out what do you consider to be your highest point when you worked in the space of you know the youth empowerment youth empowerment and sports in Ember County in Ember County Oh my God I was there quite briefly but I'm mobilizing the youth to the to the art arena Okay and getting of staff into the into into the talent academy it was during my time that we were able to deploy to employ to recruit staff into that academy and of course we refabished the talent academy Yes and then it was during that time that we mobilized the artists began to see okay the youth can do something slightly more than coming to play basketball at the talent academy apart from just doing sports that was the time when we also go to the Kenya Film Commission on board and we began to train the field the youth on film production and yeah I wasn't there for very long though I do have new projects coming up that the youth should look out for and how can they reach out in your you know with your team Yes for the information Yes with my team at the moment we are looking at I said earlier taking a film and tourism to the bottom of pyramid populations and we are targeting to go to every sub county and to every world and this is an initiative we are taking up with the Kenya Film Commission so that we are going to build teams from every world every small space film production teams and this is something to look out for very soon we will be calling upon the youth to come up and showcase their talents we will be training them also we are we are we are partnering on capacity building with the Kenya Film Commission so we will be training the youth as well and then we want them to produce when they produce their short films very soon I think beginning of next year we hope to start the first embo film festival and our last question here for someone who is watching this that they are not from embo county people like I said can you access these opportunities? sure I mean embo county is within Kenya so these opportunities are also for Kenyans is just that we say embo county but they are really for Kenyans we open you know 30 percent 30 percent of Kenyans are entitled to opportunities now we are easy now we are easy and we are so happy thank you very much Dr. Joanne for creating time to be with us that was an amazing discussion and I would love for us to continue this conversation any other day feel like you have any other new project that relax will be of help to the young people we would love to have this conversation again thank you very much Dr. Joanne thank you alright that is Dr. Joanne when they came she is the embo county minister for trade tourism investment and industrialization yes so guys make sure you stay tuned more on entrepreneurship Tuesday will be coming your way at Y2F4 channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at michelleashira is where you can reach out to me on all my social will be right back