The number of skilled persons serving as masons, hairdressers, caterers, and piping specialists has increased by 80 after a joint vocational skills training program by Swiss contact in Turkana County.
The County Government of Turkana and other partner organizations awarded grade III National Industrial Training Authority – NITA certificates to graduates in Kakuma.
Vocational Training Director, Stephen Eregae, said that the County was collaborating with Swiss Contact, NRC – Norwegian Refugee Council, World Food Programme and UNHCR- KENYA, to ensure that 245 youths and Adult persons from both the refugee and host communities, get Skilled training in the various fields of their interest in two phases expected to last over a three years period running to 2024.
Noting that the #worldyouthskillsday2022, was being marked on the very date, Turkana County, Eregae, said that the County was fully prepared to build the capacity of youths in the host and refugee community through vocational skills training, so as to create the critical manpower for responding to the diverse social problems arising out of the natural life in both rural and urban settlements in Turkana under the skills for life program.
Eregae said ‘Skill for Lif’e (S4L) training had changed the face of youths in the County by promoting self-reliance together with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency World Food Program and the Norwegian Refugee Council by exposing the deserving youths, to the set of skills required to push for self-employment and individual enterprise.
The Director called on more women to enroll into the program, so as to benefit from the S4L training, whose aim was to better lives at the household and community level.
The Manager for the ‘Skill for Life’ project, Alexander Kiptanui, appreciated support by the County Government and called for increased enrollment of youths into the vocational training programs, adding that the move had the capacity to improve personal and community prospects in undertaking vocational work for life benefit.
Mr. Kiptanui added that their concentration in Kakuma and the wider Turkana West region was not limited to the refugee community, but also open to the host population in the spirit of KISDEP.
