Over 120 youths from Mombasa county have benefited from a two day business training courtesy of Haki Africa.

The training conducted in partnership with Kenya Methodist University aims to equip the youths drawn from all the six sub counties with entrepreneurial skills and capacity to manage their businesses.

The training will also provide a platform for them to identify different eligible microfinance institutions to offer financial and mentorship support.

The youth are required to come up with business plans that will be funded by HAKI Africa under the support of ACT!/ Danida under the Resilience, Peace and Stability -RPS project, which envisions decrease in violent extremism, political conflict and natural resource based conflicts.

"We have been doing a lot of youth engagements and one of the major challenges the youth continuously highlighted as a cause for them to get into different vices, being susceptible to radicalization and easily misused during electioneering period to cause mayhem is unemployment. " said Haki Africa program officer, Mesaidi Omar.

Adding "Many youth in Mombasa county do not have the experience that is required for white collar jobs.  As Haki Africa we saw the gap and therefore decided to capacity build the youth to be self reliant through business. The  training will equip the youth with skills to start, manage, seek financial support and sustain their businesses."

On matters election, Mesaidi noted "The youth should use their voting rights to select leaders who they can hold them accountable. The youth need to avoid being used by the politicians."