The government is calling on youth, women and people living with disability to apply for the interest-free loans
The government has so far disbursed Sh7.1 billion in interest-free business loans to 78,000 groups through the Uwezo Fund programme.
Speaking on Monday during the SemaNaSpox discussion, Uwezo Fund CEO Peter Lengapiani encouraged more youth to apply for the loans adding that they are looking for partners to help in resource mobilisation so that they can access even more groups.
“At the moment, we have Sh1.2 billion in our various accounts and I would like to urge our young people to access this funding,” said Lengapiani.
He said Uwezo is a constituency-based revolving fund aimed at ensuring financial inclusivity for the youth, women and people living with disability and solving youth unemployment in the country. Instalment repayment starts after a six-month grace period with a 24-month repayment schedule.
“We don’t look at someone’s bank statement or assets for us to issue loans, we fund start-ups and the only thing we ask for is one to open a bank account and then they undergo training before the money is disbursed,” he said.
Lengapiani said they offer marketing and linkages where they have been working with organisations like Eco Bank to help poultry farmers access cheap feeds.
“We also offer opportunities to the youth through the Public Service Internship Programme and we have been able to absorb over 700 interns who have been given opportunities to practice their skill across the 290 constituencies,” he said.
Government Spokesperson Col (Rtd) Cyrus Oguna advised the youth to use the money they get wisely to grow their businesses and access more money in the future.
“If you are given a loan of Sh2 million and you make a mistake, your mistake is worth Sh2 million and sometimes it is very difficult to recover,” he said.
At the same time, over 1.2 million youths are working on Ajira digital to access work from government and private sector players through linkages from partners such as the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA).
ICT Authority director of Partnerships, Innovation and Capacity Zilpher Owiti said Ajira digital is a government initiative aimed at expanding the scope of work so that the youth can use the digital economy to acquire the available online jobs.
She said they offer training on data entry and transcriptions among other skills necessary to access online jobs.
“We have partnered with various stakeholders like the universities in offering training where we have Ajira clubs, constituency innovation hubs, county government resource centres, churches, NGO’s among others,” she said.
She said that they are working with the judiciary in transcribing work to make justice easy for citizens and so far over 12,000 of the provided data have been transcribed.
“In data entry at the judiciary, we have been able to employ 800 youths that have been working in the first phase in the Kisumu, Mombasa and Nairobi law courts. We have done 32 courts with over two million files scanned and are now in the process of digitising,” she said.
“As of last month (May 2022), we had trained over 180,000 youth on how to submit quality work which enables them to access more work,” she said.
Youth Enterprise Fund credit manager Samuel Njue said that their emphasis is on financial literacy training pre and after disbursing the funds to the youth. This, he added, is key in ensuring that the businesses thrive and the youth are able to repay the loans.
Njue said they also link the youth with markets for their products including negotiating for free youth space in supermarkets and they are also working with county governments to construct market shades for the youth.
“We are also undertaking franchising which is linking the youth to similar and existing businesses where they learn better through apprenticeship,” he said.
Njue said they lend funds to groups of a minimum of five members who can access from Sh100,000 up to Sh1 million interest-free. For the individual, loans start from Sh100,000 up to Sh5 million with a six per cent interest.
The loans cut across all sectors of the economy; agribusiness, creative-talent, retail and wholesale sector among others.
Source: MY Gov