I Choose Life unveils programme to empower one million young people

Sports and Culture Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed and her Youth and Gender Affairs counterpart Margaret Kobia during the I Choose Life mentorship event. (Standard)

I Choose Life (ICL) has unveiled a program that seeks to empower the youth to deal with challenges facing them, including unemployment. The programme is dubbed ‘One million youth empowerment challenge’.

The initiative, branded as SEALS programme, was launched during a mentorship event held at the University of Nairobi (UoN) last week.

Outlining how the programme will work, I Choose Life Chief Executive Officer Mike Mutungi said they have developed the roadmap to empower a million young people in ten counties in the next five years.

“We aim at empowering 1,000 university students in several universities in the country. In turn, the empowered students will each empower 1,000 secondary students summing up to a million people within a five-year period,” he said.

Speaking at the event on behalf of the university’s vice chancellor, UoN Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Prof Julius Ogeng’o said the institution would be at the forefront in implementing the I Choose Life initiative.

“The youth are the future of any nation, but they face a lot of challenges. The SEALS Programme will help encourage them to transform their behaviour. It will also identify and be part of the solutions to the challenges affecting them,” he said.

The Cabinet Secretary for Sports and Culture Amina Mohammed called upon young people to support each other to do the right thing.

Youth and Gender Affairs Cabinet Secretary Margaret Kobia said the government created 850,000 jobs out of the million jobs promised in the last financial year.

“Sports and arts can help create thousands of jobs for the youth and they should try and lead themselves to desirable thoughts, decisions and goals in life aside from focusing on white collar jobs,” she said.

Apart from the mentorship programme, I Choose Life also conducts sexual and reproductive health services for the youth, offers civic education, enhances university students’ access to employment and economic empowerment, leadership and governance.

The event attracted hundreds of university students from at least ten universities in the country.