More Than 5,000 Youth From Wester Kenya Kick Off The NYOTA Training, To Be Awarded Ksh 50,000 In The End

More than 5,000 youths from Bungoma, Busia, Kakamega, and Vihiga counties are currently undergoing a Business Development Skills training, equipping them with the necessary skills to start and run their own enterprises.

This is part of the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) – a five-year Government of Kenya project with the overall goal of increasing employment, enhancing earnings, and promoting savings for vulnerable youth nationwide. It is supported by the World Bank.

Upon finishing the training, the young people benefit from a start-up capital of KES 50,000 towards their business. They will be given the capital in two batches of KES25,000. KES 3,000 in each of the batches will be deposited in the Haba Haba saving scheme that is being run by the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).

This component is being implemented by the State Department of MSME Development through the Micro and Small Enterprises Authority (MSEA).

More than 1.4 million young Kenyans applied for the NYOTA Project. 100,0000 youth aged between 18 to 29 years, and up to 35 years for Persons Living with Disability will benefit from the business grant in three cohorts. The first cohort will comprise 54,000 beneficiaries, while the second and third cohorts will benefit 30,000 and 16,000 beneficiaries, respectively.

Speaking at the NYOTA Project update, Cabinet Secretary Wycliffe Oparanya revealed that the 4 Western Kenya counties are the first of the eight clusters to benefit from the NYOTA Project.

“We expect to roll out training rapidly across the other seven clusters. After completing classroom training in each cluster, the phased disbursement of the business start-up capital to the trained beneficiaries to enable them to launch their businesses. Subsequently, they will receive hands-on support from business development experts to incubate their ideas,” said Wycliffe Oparanya.

The CS also revealed that the official launch of the NYOTA Project will coincide with the commencement of disbursing start-up capital to the trained beneficiaries in cluster 1 and will be presided over by President William Ruto in a few weeks.

The other NYOTA Project interventions are structured around improving youth employability through skills development, apprenticeship certification, and work placement.