Jobs for Africa Foundation

My mission is to give hope to hundreds of young Africans that drown in the Mediterranean sea each year . Every year 18 million Africans enter the job market but only 3 million jobs are created in the formal economy. The 15 million that are left out go into desperation and by giving them life skills, entrepreneurial skills and creating income generating projects, I will show them that there are huge opportunities in a growing continent like Africa. Africa has a growing population that needs to be fed, yet despite having more than 65% of the World's remaining arable land, the continent is a net importer of food spending close to 70 billion dollars per year on food imports. If we make agriculture more sexy for the youth, better paying by investing in the supply chain, introducing digitalization, then tech savvy youth in Africa will be attracted to join. 

From a very young age , I have always believed that education is the key to success in life. The first born in a family of 10 children  in Kenya, I had to work hard in school and when I made it I helped my brothers and sisters. Out of a family of 10 children, eight are university graduates. I did not stop there and I founded a Ray of Hope for Children which helped more than 20 orphans pay school fees. I Co-founded the Jobs for Africa Foundation after seeing the desperation of young people drowning in the sea as they try to look for opportunities in Europe. My mission is Jobs, Skills development and Entrepreneurship. I also go into Job rich sectors such as agriculture, digital economy as an enabler and services. I also believe that because of the fact that the world of work is changing, African youth need not only the skills of today but also the skills of the future. We have to keep face with what is happening.

I am solving the problem of youth unemployment in Africa. It is very widespread because only 20% of those who enter the job market each year are able to find jobs. The rest 80% are left in a sea of desperation with some joining Jihadist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia and others in Mali. The median age in Africa is 19 years whereas that of Sweden is 44 years.

Our first action is advocacy to African governments by telling them that youth unemployment is a security issue. We have been recognized by the African Union for this role and been admitted into the 1Mby2021 Initiative which seeks to empower 1M youth by 2021 in Africa through employment, education, entrepreneurship and civic engagement. 

Jobs for Africa Foundation puts emphasis on creating  jobs, skills development and entrepreneurship. We are developing training programmes to address the mismatch between education and training and the needs of the job market. We put more emphasis on soft skills, critical thinking, communication, team work. We are also focussing on agriculture and have two pilot programmes in Kenya one on integrating youth and women into the global supply chain of fruits and vegetables

Our approach is based on virtual training to reach as many young people as possible. We use pilot projects and only deploy them once they have succeeded. The lessons learnt are critical. We identify high potential income generating projects and accompany them through mentoring, exposure to markets, finances and training of employees in order to improve productivity.

Our work is unique and disruptive because we focus more on soft and transferable skills.

Steps we are taking are needs analysis of the country, a survey of what skills employers are looking for in the country. We also analyze the security situation in the country, the business environment, the education and training system, the competitive advantage of the country to identify which sectors can easily create an ecosystem of job creating SMEs