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{
    "id": 978170,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/978170/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 180,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Saboti, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Caleb Luyai",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2740,
        "legal_name": "Caleb Amisi Luyai",
        "slug": "caleb-amisi-luyai"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to support this Bill. First, I want to recognise that such a Bill must be heavily contributed to by youthful Members of Parliament. We keep on ignoring the youths’ voice by trying to say that we are youthful in our mind and hearts. However, the Constitution clearly describes who a youth is. A youth is a person or Kenyan who is below the age of 35. If I give you my Identification Card now, it is clear that I am 32 years old. Many youths have missed chances because of elders who claim to be youths. That is how youth lose their chance. That starts in this House even when giving Members chances to contribute on matters of the youth. The organisations that are women-based cannot be led by a man because he will not understand. The same case is with organisations that are youth-based. Organisations dealing with youth affairs should not be led by people who are out of the age bracket of the youth. What will they be deliberating? We missed the point as regards the NYC where we have people who over 35 years old pretending to be leading the youth. What do they know about a young person? We must correct this as we go on. The census results that were released recently show that 70 per cent of the population is below 35 years. The age limit is 35 years. Organisations that deal with youth affairs must be led by people who are 35 years of age and below. What are we going to do with a population of 75 per cent who are below 35 years? That is a matter that we need to discuss as a nation. Youth leadership is not new. Most of us have engaged in youth activity before ending up in Parliament. We have had the time of “Yes you can” where we had the former Ambassador to the USA, Michael Ranneberger. We tried to take that programme and I remember how it shook the nation. The Kibaki Administration thought that it was an overthrow of the Government and it had to end. Mr. Obama won the election because he premised his campaign on the youth force. He said that youth population can be demographic dividends. If you do not include it in our national discourse, it can end up becoming a disaster for our nation. Therefore, this is a very important Bill that must be implemented to the later to help our youth get well organised. We have had youth activism in this country, but they are not well organised. There are no policies to guide them. That is why the BBI supporters are crying that there is no youth representation at the national level. Most of the milestones achieved by women are because of women activism through the Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organisation (MYWO) . Women get elected to Parliament because of such strong movements that have helped them achieve up to where they are. We are talking about gender equality. We also need to escalate to the users because we cannot classify youths as vulnerable groups. If you look at our Constitution, we classify them as vulnerable groups. We also classify elders and women as vulnerable, but we treat youth differently. There is pesa kwa wazee, but none for vijana yet all of them are vulnerable groups. So, why are we giving wazee, who are retiring money, and not the youth? When I talk about giving a Kshs3,000 stipend to every young person who is unemployed, you will say it is a waste of taxpayer’s money. We cannot be classified as vulnerable groups, but when it comes to dividends and social assistance from the Government, we give it to the old people. We give social assistance to the old people and women, but there is no youth fund to cater for the young people. We talk about the Uwezo Fund that is only skewed towards entrepreneurship. Who told you all young people are business people? Some of them just want to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}