The year 2019 is already smiling at many young Kenyan graduates who were earlier locked out of employment by the biggest elephant in the youth unemployment room, *relevant experience.*Cognisant of this predicament, Optiven Group has now started a 360° mentorship program which is far much better than the usual internship.
The Group has subsequently offered more than 50 mentorship opportunities to young graduates in the year 2019.
The need for well refined mentorship programs in this country is so dire that our recent advert, that run for only 5 days, attracted over 5,000 applicants. This is an indicator that we need to have a more collaborative approach with fellow SMEs & corporate in Kenya and Africa, with regards to offering a sustainable solution to this problem.
We need to open our doors wider and allow these intelligent graduates to practice what they have learnt in the universities, albeit for short but fulfilling dispensation of time, say three months or more.
For starters, the program allows graduates to join the area of their training, say: Human Resource, ICT, Accounts, Admin, Records, Sales and Marketing.
More importantly, those who get into this program get a guaranteed Mentorship opportunity that is tailor-made to make sure that the young people are moulded not just to fit into their careers of choice, but to be thinkers who can take this country to the next level.
By the time they finish the program, they get a certificate from one of the most forerunner organizations, Optiven Group. This will give them an upper hard in getting a job or starting their own start up business.
As SMEs and Corporate, we also believe that more collaboration with central and local governments is imperative, and order to take up this game to the next level, we also urge the National and county governments to seriously work on policies that will help towards better apprenticeship and mentorship of our huge number of youths, who constitute over 50% of our Kenyan population.
And of course there is no reason why such youth friendly policies can not be easily replicated by the entire African continent.
We at Optiven Group are willing to share this 360° mentorship model with other SMEs and corporate, and we believe this will be a game-changer to our young population.
_George Wachiuri is a Leading Entrepreneur, a Published Author, Philanthropist, Youth Empowerment Enthusiast, a Family man and CEO of Optiven Group_
*Website:* www.optiven.co.ke
