Centre helps youth nurture creative talents

By WINSLEY MASESE

With a saturated job market, the search for a job is often a wild goose chase. In a society that translates going to university as a ticket to formal employment, anything outside the norm is considered as misguided.

However, Jesuit Hakimani Centre has been changing this mindset. It assists students to realise their potential and nurture new talents. This aids youth to erase the mentality that formal employment is something worth dying for.

“It’s a good thing for students to study specific careers but it is also better to know that they may never practise what they specialised in college,” notes the centre’s Executive Director Dr Elias Mokua, who is also a management and leadership specialist. One of the significant areas is to transit those who have graduated from university or secondary school from formal education to different career options, including outside their areas of specialty.

By opening up to students, they are able to see what is ahead and be better prepared to face the challenges and seek other alternatives. “Everyone for example is aiming to attain a masters’ degree as the lowest qualification but jobs are not going to come easily and the early they appreciate it the better,” Mokua says.

Youthful experience

 He argues that it would be sad talk for any organisation, to promise the youth jobs. “At Jesuit, we aim to ensure that the youth have experience and understand about careers and self-employment,” he said.

With practical knowledge such as how to write a business proposal, they can access easily government funding and other practical skills related to a start-up and established businesses.  “We are endowed with talents and skills and these gifts may not be nurtured at universities hence the need to come in,” he notes.

 In some cases, some pursue medicine but are gifted in drama and the centre tries to identify that and enable them pursue both without any distraction. “In a way, we try to bring the best out of the students and want to support the young people where we can,” he said.   Zacharia Chiliswa, the centre’s programmes co-ordinator argues that many students are trapped in a societal mentality that a graduate can do a white collar job and anything outside is failure.

“Studies indicate that  young people think that they can only work in companies and not start something of their own and they need to change that attitude,” says Chiliswa. He observes that majority of the students and pupils think of getting employed but do not think how to transform the society using the skills they have. “They have never sat down to think how some concepts started and challenge them to seek that route as a better alternative,” Chiliswa argues.

The centre encourages one to explore alternatives besides what was planted while they were in school. Chiliswa reckons, “Do not become complacent and fall into that trap of believing that as a graduate, you have to get employed or be branded as a failure.”  The centre has drama programmes where students from institutions of higher learning can nurture talents. 

“We want to appreciate talents inherent in a person and not force them to think that respect and esteem come if you work in an NGO and anything else is secondary,” notes Dr Mokua. It also carries competitions in which students with innovative ideas can showcase them and get support on how to commercialise the ideas.

 One of the past participants will have his idea incubated at the Chandaria Business Innovation and Incubation Centre. The centre offers internship to students on how to carry research on a wide range of fields. “This assists them know how to go about procedures for interpretation and computation of data and data analysis,” Mokua states.