By ndolo asasa
20th April 2010
The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) is currently holding a 4 day consultation workshop with elders drawn from various communities nationally on fostering national cohesion. This is a good start, though the strategy attracts a yawn!
While the elders hold an important position in national cohesion, the future of a sustainably integrated Kenya lies in the hands of the younger generation and the middle class. As such, NCIC must demonstrate freshness and courageously place the youth at the centre of their programmes. It must stop pushing the youth to the periphery and treating them as users of decisions made elsewhere.
It is hoped that NCIC will shift its focus to the youth as a strategy of emphasizing new thought on the Kenya being. The youth have more at stake as they are the custodians of the future and generally have less historical baggage than the elders that ties them to the status quo or romanticized tribal cocoons of the past.
Being the only Commission of the Agenda IV created commissions that is permanent in its nature, it is important that its strategy and style also reflect that state of permanency. It is high time government institutions started running their programmes with a with a firm focus on the future and sustainably by heavily involving the youth and shedding off now entrenched prejudices against the capacity, focus and commitment of the youth.
By the way, what is the average age of the perpetrators of the post election violence in relation to the average age of the commissioners of the Agenda IV created commission?
The youth must be more centrally used in the efforts to solve existing and anticipated societal problems of the Kenyan nation for a sustainable future.
