Brief Introduction

I would like to welcome everyone to my blog. I will first do a little introduction of the blog, and of myself.

Meru county map

On this blog, I will post my general ideas on how we can make our county better. Meru County. I hope that this blog will get the attention of our prominent people; including our leaders, who will possibly consider some of these ideas. I would first of all like to commend our leaders in Meru for the much they have been able to achieve for our community. We are definitely one of the successful counties in our country. However, we still have a long way to go as a county. I believe with the right policies and implementers, we can make it.


I am a youth living and studying in Meru. Over the years I have lived here, I have made some observations. These observations have made me come to a possible reason as to why our county may not be doing so well: Economically and socially. I will outline the reasons I consider most important.


Now, we all know that it is the youth who build the society. Therefore, in my opinion, if any county is serious with its development, then a conducive environment for the youth is necessary. This conducive environment involves the social background of the community. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but, these days there seems to be a very low concern when it comes to social welfare activities like sports, games, cultural events etc in our society. Not only in Meru, but in the whole of Kenya generally. And the situation is worsening, day by day.


Personally, the last time I engaged in a sporting activity was when I was in high school. I liked playing basketball a lot. Since then, I have forgotten how a ball looks like. And it's not that I don't want to play, I just don't get a chance here in our villages. There is not an enabling social welfare background. And this is not the case for me alone, it's true for many other youths like me here in Meru.


The truth is, after most youths are through with high school, life takes a totally different turn. For one, there is no more interesting social events like games events, drama festivals, music festivals or science events in the villages. All the youthful energy, talent, creativity and skills in most young people (especially my friends and those I have interacted with in Meru) ends up being underutilized. It's even worse for those who never make it to college. Or those who have never made it to school. There does not exist an organized system in the community for social welfare activities.


I am not a psychologist, physiologist or anything, but you will agree with me that people are nurtured and shaped in their youthful years. When the youth years are gone, that's it. You will have taken a certain direction in life. As the situation stands, not much has been done to provide young people with a platform to nurture their talents, abilities, skills, or utilize leisure time well. We do not have planned places where the youth can participate in social events like sports, games, dance, cultural events etc – Which I consider the most important in keeping young people productive (IMO). There is actually not a certain day in the week, or month which is dedicated for community social events (I very much think there should be one, at least each week or month).


Without writing a lot, let me give my opinion on the biggest challenge we are facing in Meru county and how we can address it to realize a productive community in Meru.

• The main problem we are facing in our county is we are losing a lot of untapped and not-well-nurtured youth energy every year. For one, most of us (youths) who finish high school or college migrate to cities and towns in search of a better life. If, for example, I realize I will no longer be able to play basketball in the village, or I may not get anything constructive to be occupied with, I move to a place I assume is better off (Meru town, Nairobi, Mombasa …) And as I mentioned, if for example I never made it to high school, or I am done with studies and cannot afford to migrate, it means I will always be around. And since I cannot have access to what I need here, I end up getting into non-constructive and anti-social activities.
  

I cannot emphasize more why we need a structured support system for young people. What I will point out is that, when some of us go to towns and cities after high school/college, there are those who are left around. There are those who are always around. (Additionally, we always have holidays, so at one point everybody is always back at home in the village). So what do they do, they hang out in local social places all day. And what happens here, of course they start smoking, drinking alcohol, drug abuse, idling and finally getting into crime and other social evils. They end up losing direction, hope, focus, optimism, and a future for themselves and for the whole community. I am not against responsible consumption of alcoholic drinks, but when everything is overdone you get negative results. I am not also against youths hanging out in our local towns during their free time either, I'm just concerned that it is not productive, as it is the only solace they find.
Therefore, with some of the youths leaving for cities, others too busy getting involved in vices, and others stuck in nothingness, what happens to our community and society:-

1. We have lost talent, creativity, innovation, skills and energy to drive us to development.
2. Crime, lawlessness, insecurity, drug abuse rise, and general productivity falls.
3. We have lost talent that could be nurtured (there is always very talented children in high school, just go to provincial and national events). After high school/college no one cares for the youths talents.
4. We have lost and lost and lost much, you can imagine the rest too...I cannot emphasize much for now.
   

I have in mind an idea that I believe can solve our problem. I have done a lot of research in it and found out that it can totally work. And I have it detailed here (click the link) in my next article.
My hope is therefore that our leadership takes note of this issue and try to address it in whatever manner. My hope is also that you also - the concerned Meru citizen , do in your capacity what you can to mind the welfare of our county. Because we need our youth to stay around and develop our county. We need them to put the skills they have acquired at work in our county. We need them to gear our county into a better place. But most importantly, we need to mind their welfare. For them to be fully productive.


Feel free to leave a comment, suggestion, opinion, view or anything you feel like. You are fully welcome.

A community centre

Welcome back.

For lack of other suitable phrases, I will refer to it as:

• Community Youth Centre
• Community Culture Centre
• Community Centre
• Community Social Cultural centre

Whatever the name. I hope you get an idea of what I am trying to refer to. A Community Youth Centre, is the place where you have the youth participating in social activities, sporting activities, get information, share ideas, have fun, spend their free time and utilize their skills & talents. This is the place where community social activities are organized and carried out. It is the place where all people, young and old go to participate in community social activities. It is where all people from the village get a chance to meet, interact, support each other and share with each other. It also the place where all people from the community come to support, cheer and watch their youth exploit their talents. It is the place where all youths showcase their different talents in music, dance, sports, ideas etc etc, name it all. I will go no further, you get the idea I suppose.

Sample Youth Centre layout

I do not want to create an impression that this is some enormous place with expensive stadiums, buildings and state-of-the-art sports fields, equipments and such kind of things. No. This place is just a normal expansive field with a number of structures and open places for activity. The main thing is that this is where the youth and the community will have a chance to engage in social activity.

I have come to this idea because I find it to have great positive impacts in our society and its development. I happen to believe that our culture is dying day in day out. Do not mistake me for the kind of people who support stone-age behaviour in the name of 'culture'. What I mean is, we play less nowadays, we dance less nowadays and we do sports less nowadays. Well, I am not disregarding our olden ways, but we need to realize that times have changed, and we have become modernized. The definition of Culture I would like understood here is "the behaviours, beliefs, values and characteristics of a particular social or ethnic group/ community". Therefore, in the old days, our great grandparents used to have community activities in dance, sports, cultural events etc. We are a modern age, and though we cannot do these things the same way they did, we cannot lose them altogether. It's wrong and has consequences. Enough of that.

The benefits I have identified in a Community Youth centre (I have already mentioned some before) include:-

1. The youth will find a place to express themselves both verbally and physically.
2. We will manage to keep our youth occupied in constructive fun activities.
3. The centre will be an avenue to disseminate information to the youth and all people (regarding awareness, development, society, idea growth etc)
4. We will as a community manage to keep the youth productive in our community.
5. ...you can add more, the list goes on and on. The benefits are countless.

My suggestion is to have such Youth centres in probably every Ward. I am positive that this is a project(s) that can completely turn around our County economically and socially. It is an idea that can be applied in the whole country if you ask me, but well, it's all about Meru county here.

Well, I hope that anyone who reads this will do something about it, in your capacity. If you find this idea worthwhile, you can reach out to our leaders or anyone that could make it possible for us. For our Society and for our future. (You can leave a comment here too).

For now, I will post the general overview of a Community Youth Centre here. How it should look like and what it should have.