{"id":671758,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/671758/?format=json","text_counter":268,"type":"other","speaker_name":"","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, lastly, somebody was joking the other day. He said, “the reason why you find that we have a big challenge in our country in employment of our young people is because when our youth were in class in their “O” levels or even in early university, when they were being shown the diagrams of an insect and told that this is a leg, this is the thorax, this is the abdomen, a young man of the same age in Japan was in a technical school learning how to assemble an engine.” At the convergence zone of their lifetime, one of them is an engineer who has an income, can manufacture a vehicle or is employed. In our case, we have a young man who is “tarmacking” with knowledge that is not relevant for his day to day applications or living. So, this is the thrust of my Bill. We have young people who have already taken the initiative. They have said, “This is the way to go.” Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we must tell the truth. In this country, those volunteers who have said that they do not want to be beggars and rather be business people and young entrepreneurs have been suffering. If you walk along Uhuru Highway in the afternoon, if a yellow van is seen, you will be lucky if you do not witness an accident, for instance, somebody losing his or her limps. You have seen how hackers run away from our city enforcement agencies; some of them almost break their legs. You have seen how they are bundled into vans at night and locked up in police stations all over the city for doing one thing; trading in legal wares. Therefore, if we formalize or recognise in law that all these young people require is big banks like Equity Bank, Barclays Bank et cetera to fund their enterprise. When they refer to small traders, they do not have to go to the factories in industrial area, they can look at the streets and when they do so, they will find an opportunity for growing young people to become entrepreneurs. Other examples are the herdsmen in the markets of Kajiado, young men in the markets on your way to Kibuye and the young people in Samburu who trade in hides and skins and dry them and carry them on their backs. All these young people can be harnessed. In Kisii, young people make artifacts with soapstone. They are somewhere on the roads selling these wares for Kshs5 or Kshs10. If we support them, then we will have a very vibrant economy. We would have young people who can start from somewhere. This is how history has been made in this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to summarise by using examples of world renowned philanthropists and investors, for example, Mr. Richard Branson, the Chief Executive Officer of the Virgin Enterprise. He has business interests from airlines to resorts in the whole world worth billions of shillings. In his history and in his books, he has clearly said that he started business in college by buying and selling used books. He opened a small shop selling music cassettes. From there, he went on and became a big business man. He opened a small bank. From there, he opened an airline. Now he is a name to reckon with in the list of “who is who” in the world. If my memory serves me right, he is ranked amongst the Forbes 500 in the world as a top billionaire yet he started with nothing. We can find our Richard Bransons in this country, on these streets and on Uhuru Highway, on the roads of Kiambu and in the plains of Kano in Siaya. There is no limit as long as we empower these young people. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"}