EMPOWERING YOUTHS FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN HOMA BAY COUNTY.

Definitions of youth have changed continuously in response to fluctuating political, economic and socio cultural circumstances. Young people comprise a social group that faces particular problems and uncertainties regarding its future, problems that relate in part to limited opportunities for appropriate employment. The difficult circumstances that people experience in h-bay County are often even more difficult for young people because of limited opportunities for education and training, viable employment and health and social services, and because of a growing incidence of substance abuse and juvenile delinquency. Their imagination, ideals, considerable energies and vision are essential for the continuing development of the societies in which they live. Thus, there is special need for new impetus to be given to the design and implementation of youth policies and programmes at all levels. The ways in which the challenges and potentials of young people are addressed by policy will influence current social and economic conditions and the well-being and livelihood of future generations.

In today’s world the youth is facing the most of hardships and lack of belongingness within the society. Youth in Homa-bay County and Kenya as a whole constitute a big chunk of the population, yet it remains the most subjugated and marginalized. The difficult circumstances that young people face because of limited opportunities for education and training, viable employment and health and social services, and because of a growing incidence of substance abuse and juvenile delinquency is deteriorating the chance of Kenya’s quest for achieving the status of a developed Nation.. Their imagination, ideals, considerable energies and vision are essential for the continuing development of the societies in which they live.

Young people in all parts of the world, living in countries at different stages of development and in different socio-economic settings, aspire to full participation in the life of society. Young people represent agents, beneficiaries and victims of major societal changes and are generally confronted by a paradox: to seek to be integrated into an existing order or to serve as a force to transform that order.