About 70 youths from Mombasa County and its environs have benefited from a three year technical courses training, courtesy of Mombasa Go Kart-Company (funfair joint) and Severin Sea Lodge Beach hotel.
The cohorts at the vocational training center are undertaking technical courses in electrical, plumbing, masonry, carpentry and joinery, welding and fabrication both in theory and practical lessons.
This Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by the two companies is geared towards addressing unemployment among the youth.
Youth unemployment and underemployment has been a major issue in Kenya for years where about one in every three people under 35 is unable to find a job, despite actively seeking work.
The youth unemployment crisis can be solved by empowering the youths through technical skills to empower them to find and create jobs.
Policy makers and stakeholders have invested in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions, anticipating that the increase in skill acquisition will result in access to gainful employment.
Two foreign investors, Mr Severin Schulte, the hotel owner and the funfair joint proprietor Reto Casanova are the brains behind the institute offering technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) tailored courses curved out of Europe apprenticeship training system.
The innovative concept includes a preventive maintenance program for the hotel buildings and machines, which offers the trainees the ideal opportunity to realize their acquired skills.
“We focus very much on practical approaches or learning by doing. We have here now students who started 10 days ago and they are already building walls not only for school purposes, real walls which end up in buildings. They make bricks and bridges at the moment. These kids, their motivation is very high because, like colleges, where you build something, scrap it and start again. We do practical work from day one and teach them theory on safety tools and workplace safety standards,” said Reto in an interview.
The institution was born out of a lack of qualified craftsmen in Mombasa to hire for the repair work in maintenance intensive business ventures like his funfair joint.
“We always have high demand maintenance work and that is when we come up with the idea to train our own craftsmen and release them to the job market,” he added.
Reto noted that the three year practical led vocational training is tailored from the European apprenticeship system, which had been credited for the industrial revolution and economic growth in countries like Germany, France, Spain and Britain.
In Europe, high school leavers either join universities or pursue apprenticeship pathways to work and earn salaries as they acquire trade skills.
“It is a widespread program especially in Germany and Switzerland. It goes hundreds of years back. It is the main factor to our industrial success. When you come out of elementary school you have a choice of either go to university or apprenticeship. Vast majority of youngsters choose the apprenticeship because you immediately earn salaries like employees in factories while you work alongside workers and train at the same time,” he said.
The Swiss does most of his work at his Mombasa Go-Kart funfair park with his bare-knuckle through set of skills he had acquired through apprenticeship training after his elementary school late 70s in his motherland.
Reto said he found the need to transfer the same skills he had acquired in his formative years to young Kenyans and contribute to their dream for a self-determined life.
“We try to bring the system and adapt it to Kenya reality but the system does not take off because it has no cultural anchor here. Which company employs youngsters for four years, trains them and pays them salary and after four year, they go into competition. That is normal procedure in Europe,” he remarked.
Reto added: “So we adopted that system a bit. We offer three years training. In the first year, it’s focusing on learning all professional skills. We don’t pay any salary there but we don’t charge any school fees, lunch is included. In the Second and third year, and there we offer apprenticeship salaries. Our trainees work along with workers in the maintenance department in hotels and other companies and at the same time, they get trained”
The Swiss observed that such parental and society influence on youngsters has been the main cause of slow uptake of TVET courses among the country’s secondary school leavers amid a widespread notion of superiority status placed on university degrees.
“Here in Kenya, parents with money push their youngsters into universities to do courses like international conflict resolution and they end up with no chance to find jobs. You can still go to the university after apprenticeship, you will be a more qualified engineer because you have learnt it from the bottom. Nobody has to tell you this is not possible, because you have done it yourself and you have broader knowledge,” he observed.
Sarah Kenyanya Julius and Michael Odhiambo are among such students who have already set their goals upon graduating from Severin Craftsman Training Center.
Sarah and Michael are in their second year of their welding and fabrication and plumbing courses respectively.
Sarah finished Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in 2017 and pursued fashion and design only to change her mind after finding a saturated job market.
On his part, Odhiambo expects to graduate next year and join the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology to do a degree course.
The institute received Ksh 4 million support from Skills for Africa (SIFA), an initiative of the African Union Commission (AUC) supported by the German Government to strengthen occupational prospects of young people in Africa.
Kenya is among eight pilot countries of the program which is aimed at providing employment oriented skills development to young people in Africa.
However, Reto said they need more sponsors in their quest to train more youths like Sarah and Odhiambo and establish Severin Craftsman Training Center as a center of excellence in apprenticeship training programs in Kenya.
“We expect to find donors to support our year three students or hire them to companies and hotels and pay them salaries while they offer them their respective professional services,” he added.