Thousands of Kiambu youths have found themselves on the misfortune wing after their wish to be recruited into the National Youth Service (NYS) being denied.
The youth were blocked from completing the recruitment exercise on Tuesday, February 6, after they were found having tattoos on their body.
Peterson Kamande is one of the youths who expressed his profound remorse for having a tattoo on his body, saying it has barred him from getting into service, which he was very much optimistic about.
Message from youths with tatooes blocked from NYS recruitment
Speaking to the journalists, Kamande asked youths to always bow to their parent(s) or guardians’ advices, saying he now regrets why he gave a deaf ear to his parents’ advice of not trying to have body arts.
“I was disqualified because I have tattoos which were injected right when I was in high school. My parents had warned about it but it has finally come to cost me. I’m now looking for an expert to have it removed because I am losing government opportunities, ” Kamande said.
Most youths observed that the exercise they were given was quite far but apart from tattoos being a major disqualifying factor, a large number also couldn’t get the slot because of errors in their national Identity cards which were reading a different area of birth.
While the recruitment of 15,000 volunteers to join the National Youth Service continues across the country, youths came out in multitude showing a convincing intent that they want to leverage it to further get into either the National Police Service, Kenya Defence Forces, Kenya Wildlife Service or Kenya Forestry Service.
President William Ruto said that 80% of the recruitment of the named discipline services will come from NYS pool.
“We came out to join the NYS to further qualify to join various disciplined services as promised by the president. We are happy that NYS is now creating opportunities for the youths,” Youth leader in Thika, Zachary Mwangi said.
Ruto’s promise to NYS trainees
The head of state
said that Kenyans being exported for labour abroad should go through the National Youth Service Training (NYS).
This followed Ruto’s administration’s plans to export labour to foreign countries to curb the country’s rising unemployment.
Speaking during the NYS pass-out parade in Gilgil, Nakuru, on Friday, December 8, Ruto said NYS will be a pre-deployment college for Kenyans to be exported for labour abroad.
“In the process of securing jobs for our youth in foreign countries, the NYS is going to be the central organisation for pre-deployment training, so that Kenyans understand what they need to do when they go out for labour,” said Ruto.
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