BLAZE by Safaricom hosted it last summit for the year over the weekend at the National Youth Service (NYS) Yatta Unit in Machakos County. At the event, over 5,000 recruits, service men and women engaged and learned from BLAZE mentors and partners.
Attendees of the summit were drawn from the three NYS units within the Machakos area, which have a total population of 10,000. The Yatta Unit leads with a population of 5000, followed by the Athi-River Unit with 3,000 and the Mavoloni Unit with 2,000.
Following the Yatta summit, BLAZE plans to hold more summits at NYS facilities across the country, where it will work in tandem with NYS mentors to deliver programs that are tailor-made to the interests of NYS recruits.
Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) features youth mentorship summits and creation camps all focused on empowering Kenyan youth to achieve success by providing valuable information, skills and networking opportunities in a variety of fields including: creative arts, fashion, film and photography, music, agriculture, sales and production and sports.
Michael Joseph, Safaricom CEO, had this to say, “This year, we have engaged over 150,000 youth across the country through BYOB and supported 96 young entrepreneurs to a tune of KES 3.2 million. We saw it fit to conclude this year’s BYOB activities by engaging the NYS for the first time since BLAZE was launched in 2016.”