Students need skills that help them grow beyond the classroom. These life skills, or soft skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication skills, are among those any one should possess if they are to make it in life. This is what The President’s Award Kenya, a member of The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Association, considered when it was being established. Through the platform, young people’s achievements outside academia are recognised and celebrated. The programmeme is an exciting self-development one available to all young people, equipping them with positive life skills to make a difference for themselves, their communities, country and the world. Edwin Kimani, the Global Operations Director of the programme, attended the recently concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. In an exclusive interview with Career & Skills , he explained how the programme operates, noting that it gives particular skills young people need in life that are not academically related, soft skills that help them grow. Some young people will have the knowledge from school and will be educated on everything needed in school, but still lack the skills that are needed for survival outside, for example saving skills- not all young people are taught how to save and when they are done with school, they end up misusing their income which can affect them. But the programme offers them those soft skills that are crucial in life, he explains. Nevertheless, the programme also teaches young people about employability, whether to create jobs for themselves or become the person everybody is looking for. The programme welcomes people from the age of 14 to 24, irrespective of their backgrounds, and also provides universal skills that make them fit for purpose and the world. “It’s purely voluntary; you are not obliged to basically take the programme. It is not a competition, it’s basically self-development and setting your own goals,” he said. With the programme, students get to do four sections of activities in order to receive a bronze medal that is equivalent to a certificate. There are frameworks we give to young people for them to reach the bronze level, which is: community service where a young person has to choose a community to give back to with a willing heart and not as an obligation, and the second one is about physical recreation-an element building lifelong habits about physical fitness. There is another about skills development- that helps you to connect with yourself and helps to know who you are and what you are good at. And the fourth is about leadership development which pushes you out of your comfort, he said. Expanding to Rwanda Kimani says he is looking forward to getting some entities here in Rwanda, for those who are able to take up the programme. According to him, the programme could really be handy in equipping young people from Rwanda with skills they need in life-skills that will help them tackle certain issues such as employability. “The programme will definitely work because already, my perception is that the systems here work and there’s a desire. Rwanda is also a country that has a very big youth population, and some of them are driving the country’s political and economic agenda so when I think about that, it’s very easy, to get the programme into Rwanda,” he says. The President’s Award-Kenya was launched in 1966 by the Founding Father of the nation, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.
