From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013
Following highlights from the 2013 Pope Benedict XVI’s prayer intentions for the year 2013 published by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano which include prayers for participants in World Youth Day, which is slated to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during July, our chat with one of my Facebook friends from Indonesia, Mariss Stella revealed a lot to be desired. The core of the chat was to discern the challenges facing our youth today.
While other intentions emphasize global respect for human life and the environment as well as specific prayers for the protection of families, Pope Benedict will also be praying for the Year of Faith, which marks the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, and is set to conclude in 2013.
The general intention for January is that during this “Year of Faith” Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and joyfully bear witness to the gift of faith in Him, whereas missionary intention is that the Christian communities of the Middle East, which frequently suffer discrimination, may receive the strength of fidelity and perseverance of the Holy Spirit.
Following our chat we came to common agreement that unemployment among youth was a major crisis. Of the total of 200 million people unemployed worldwide according to International Labour Organization (ILO), 75 million, or around 40 percent, are young people.
In Kenya there are about 500,000 youth who graduate from various tertiary institutions ready to enter the job market every year, but due to the slow economic growth, corruption, nepotism and demand for experience by potential employers, 75 percent remain unemployed.
This is despite the fact that population of youth in Kenya was expected to increase to 16 million by 2012 according to USAID -2009 report. As a result, an increasing number of youth are idle, making them highly vulnerable to involvement in petty crime, gangs and prostitution.
While almost 60 percent of Kenya’s population is aged 15 to 35, with youth comprising 61 percent of the country’s unemployed, nearly 80 percent of Indonesians aged 15 to 24 are at risk of being infected with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/Aida due to lack of knowledge.
Apart from sexually transmitted diseases teenage pregnancy in Kenya, especially amongst school going girls has become a worrying trend. This means they have to drop out of school to first take care of themselves and the baby when it is born.
Although peer pressure is usually mentioned as one of the major causes of teen pregnancies, rape, cultural practices, broken families, poverty, lack of sexual awareness, abuse of alcohol and drugs are some of the identified causes.
Peer pressure is highly rated as one of the major causes because most young people trust their peers and are easily influenced to engage in sexual encounters as a way of belong to a group.
It has also come to knowledge that lack of a stable family structure push the girls to look for security else where and this is when they get lured in relationships which have devastating effects on their lives.
In Indonesia where teen pregnancy is on rise, an average of 2.3 million women, 30 percent of whom are teenagers, report having abortions in each year, according to a new report released last year.
Pregnancy among teenagers is increasing by a rate of between 150,000 and 200,000 cases annually according to Luh Putu Ikha Widani of the We Love Teenagers (Kisara) Bali non-governmental organisation. Like the rest of the world in Indonesia 28.5 percent of teenagers today are sexually active.
A religious court official in Indonesia recently blamed social networking site Facebook for a rise in teenage pregnancies and underage marriages. Siti Haryanti, a secretary at the religious court in Mount Kidul, a town in Central Java, said young couples were having sex after meeting online and she had seen the number of underage marriages increase in the past year.
According to Siti many couples admitted they got to know each other through the site and continued their relationship until they got pregnant outside wedlock. He was quoted as saying by Antara state news agency.
“The site is easy to access even to the remote villages so intensive relationships caused many teenagers to get pregnant outside marriage,” she said.
A study by Yahoo! found that Indonesia is the largest and fastest-growing online market in Southeast Asia, with online usage growth of 48 percent in 2010, compared with 22 percent in 2009. Indonesia has more than 22 million Facebook users.
Yet Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may arguably be the most powerful tool for social and economic change today globally. Rapid and continuing growth and development in ICT is transforming the ways in which youth live and work.
Using internet for example, youth can get access to both domestic and international education and job opportunities on line. They can also share interests with peers and friends.
An estimated million people now use social media in Kenya, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. It is the eagerness to interact in social media that drives the start of internet usage.
The Communication Commission of Kenya shows that there are currently 14.3 million internet users in Kenya, which increased from 12.5 million. Also, 36.3 percent of the population has access to the internet, increasing from 31.8 percent. This growth is attributed to the spread of mobile phones throughout the country.
Against the background that Kenyan youth consume airtime worth Ksh. 23.6 billion while spending some Ksh. 64 billion annually on clothes and other accessories, according to a new study released by Youth Dynamix, Africa’s leading authority on youth matters recently.
The study further reveals that the youth consume over Ksh. 65 billion on entertainment and outings annually while up to 43 percent of youth aged between 18- 25 have registered as voters.
According to the study, the youth market in Kenya aged 16 – 24 years has a population of approximately 7.05 million, which is 18 percent of the total population with 48 percent being male while 52 percent is female. 63 percent of these youth live in rural areas.
The study identifies the key chill zones for the youth including shopping malls, cinema halls and eateries. The current Hot spots are Galleria, Prestige plaza, Nakumatt Junction, Sarit centre, West gate, Nyali Cinemax, Nakumatt Nyali mainly for the higher LSMs and Nandos, KFC, Kenchic, Lifestyle, Sharwama, Tarbush, Olympic for the middle class.
Studies further indicate that in future 39 percent would like to own an IPhone and 32 percent a Blackberry for LSM 7+. Below LSM 7 would like to own an Android or Nokia phone. 18.8 years was found to be the average age of the main internet users in Kenya with 41 percent of the youth using the internet on a daily basis.
Kenya is ranked fourth among Africa’s top internet countries as at December 31 2011 figures. Nigeria is ranked the number one country with 45 million users but this is attributed to its huge population of over 155 million people. Click here for more information Standard Digital News : Kenya ranked ahead of SA in Internet usage.
The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) quarterly sector statistics for the period October-December 2011 lauded the increase and attributed it to mobile internet subscriptions.
In that order, Uhuru Kenyatta ranks first among politicians with Martha Karua running a close second. According to the report, in the last one week, Uhuru Kenyatta’s page has been the fastest growing adding over 5000 fans followed by Martha Karua at about 3000. Click here for more information NAIROBITECH: TOP KENYAN FACEBOOK PAGES.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002
