Why former MCA feels that GEMA’s future looks bleak.

Former Kamenu Ward MCA Elizabeth Muthoni Hussein greeting Gretsa University Chairman Governing Council Professor Francis Ndung'u Kibera after she graduated with a Diploma in Social Work and Community Development.

Immediate former Kamenu Ward MCA Elizabeth Muthoni Hussein has blamed the high level of unemployment among the GEMA communities to an attitude problem brought about by their high regard to ‘getting rich’ at the expense of advancing in education.

Speaking after graduating at Gretsa University with a Diploma in Social Work and Community Development, Muthoni reckoned that literacy was an essential tool for individuals to be competitive in the new global economy and so many positions within the region had been taken up by people from other regions of the country due to inadequacy of competent local personnel.

“I am really worried over the low number of locals in certain positions in most sectors of our own economy due to our lack of requisite technical skills. These jobs are being taken up by people from other regions because as a community, we have given the value of education a wide berth and given preference to venturing into unskilled entrepreneurship,” lamented the former MCA.

Though acknowledging that there was nothing wrong in prioritising the search for money and wealth, the region was faced with a great danger of fully depending on ‘expatriates’ to run their affairs, condemning locals to merely casual and menial jobs.

“The just concluded Supreme Court presidential petition was a warning shot to us as we toiled with our much coveted tyranny of numbers with NASA teasing us with their ‘tyranny of brains’. The opposition was jammed with endless numbers of very qualified lawyers compared to just a handful from our own. We need to think twice as the situation replicates itself in majority of sectors,” she said.

She castigated the move by Kiambu County to cap job opportunities according to ethnicity saying that the move was retrogressive as it would alienate the GEMA Community and wedge animosity that is counterproductive. She suggested that instead, the county should invest more in education and the teaching of technical skills so as to make its people more marketable in the job market as well as in job creation.

“Literacy not only enriches an individual’s life, but it creates opportunities for people to develop skills that will help them provide for themselves and their families. Increasing the emphasis towards education positively impacts on the people’s standard of living and facilitates employment, helping the wider economy and community to thrive,” she explained.

Muthoni said that she opted to go back to school in 2016 due to her passion for service to the community and in pursuit of empowering people to meet their basic needs especially those of the vulnerable and the oppressed in the society.

During the graduation ceremony, 975 students graduated. The chief guest was Chancellor Dr. Kibathi Mbugua.