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Bernard Muhia - My Blog
Bernard Muhia - My Blog
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Inspiration for the youth
Related to country: Kenya

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

My name is Bernard Muhia. I am a 24 year old Kenyan male. I am a journalist by training but currently unemployed. Due to my unemployed status and with no sources of income, I am living with my single parent.

Over the past one year, I have been volunteering as an administrator with a professional body. As a young person, full of vitality and creativity, I have been less and less inspired at work over the last three months. There hasn’t been any challenging projects or assignments and that made me gradually withdraw from the organization. I have to say that I don’t have anything principally against the organization though.

A lot of young people’s creativity and energy is fizzled out in their mundane jobs, jobs that they can’t quit because they still have to pay the bills or are too afraid to follow their true dreams and passionate desires. The only remedy that they resort to is to constantly change jobs hoping to find one that inspires them. Since most of their managers and supervisors are over 40 years old, and believe in systems and maintaining the status quo, there is no way that these young employees can express their creative energies for the benefit of their employers. Individualism has also not been appreciated in most corporate cultures. The human resource manager stresses team building and collective responsibility and thus the quiet ones remain so, and the creative ones hold back.

The society is fragmented more than ever before as seen in the ever rising cases of divorce and extreme anti-social behaviour. When a family unit disintegrates either through divorce, separation or otherwise death of parents due to AIDS or any other causes, the children grow up traumatized. This country has inadequate resources, facilities and personnel to handle childhood trauma that is commonplace.

To make a bad situation worse, the high rate of unemployment in this country has left in its wake a generation of young people who have despaired and lost hope in ‘the system’ and also in themselves. Poverty is not a lack of or inadequacy of resources but a state of mind of resignation gotten from that external lack of or inadequacy of resources. A percentage of today’s successful people have very poor and seemingly hopeless backgrounds but it’s their state of mind that changed for them to rise above that background and come out successful.

It is this state of mind, which results from the real or perceived inadequacy of resources, the childhood trauma arising from disintegration of the family unit and lack of organizational support to express young people’s creative energies that moves me to want to run an inspirational program for the youth. My goal is to help young people to grow and develop by overcoming any emotional blocks, limiting beliefs, low self esteem and self destructive behaviours that are blocking the road to abundant success in their lives.

Being a young person, and having experienced all of the above puts me in the right position to get through to and be accepted by the youth. The youth as defined by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports are any persons over the age of 15 years but under the age of 30 years. I envision coordinating my efforts through a proposed youth center for excellence named ‘Under30.com’. The motto of the youth center for excellence will be ‘Make friends with success by following your bliss’.

To help me better understand the task that lies ahead, I am taking an approach used by universities which is writing dissertations or theses. I am preparing to write a book titled ‘Being a youth; A guide to the challenges, needs and aspirations of a youth’. I will carry out a survey among 200 young people to establish the following:

1. What challenges do you face as a young person; physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually, politically, economically and intellectually? (Give seven answers, one for each state, i.e. outline physical challenges, social challenges etc).

2. What are your needs in the physical, social, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, political and economic spheres? (Answer for all spheres).

3. What are your aspirations professionally, politically and socially? (Answer where applicable).

Their answers will form the basis of my book. Using the book as a guide, I will embark on the inspirational program. The program will involve screening an inspirational video program designed for the youth. The video program has been developed by Jack Canfield who is an author, motivational speaker and teacher by training. He trained at Harvard University and later at the University of Massachusetts in the U.S.A. He has also written a book titled ‘The success principles’ which will be issued to the youth benefiting from this program.

Due to the fact that this is my first time embarking on such a task, and going by the guidelines of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, I will form a linkage between the youth center for excellence and Peak Performance International. Peak Performance International is an organization that has experts in the human growth and development field. This synergy will ensure that the program is run by the youth, benefits the youth, but is mentored by experts in human growth and development. Their input will enrich the inspirational program with relevant content and the right delivery.

The program first aims to target the youth through already established structures. The first group is the youth benefiting directly through loans from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund. Their number is 22,000 young people across the country as quoted by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. The second group is composed of students. These are secondary school students, university and polytechnic students across the country.

If a country’s youth are critical to the growth of the economy and to the internal security of the country, then the youth agenda should be given the attention of a national disaster. Handing out loans is the right gesture, but if the recipients are living in a state of despair and lack motivation, then the money will be of little consequence. And if students in secondary schools, universities and polytechnics continue to strike and disrupt their studies because they see the future as being bleak due to the high unemployment rate, then we have a failed education system.

I will reiterate that poverty is not a lack of or inadequacy of resources, but a state of mind of resignation gotten from the external lack or inadequacy of resources. A percentage of today’s successful people have very poor and hopeless backgrounds, but it’s their state of mind that changed, for them to rise above that background and come out successful. Our youth need inspiration to change their state of mind from despair and resignation to hope and inspiration.

July 7, 2008 | 3:21 AM Comments  0 comments

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Motivating our youth
Related to country: Kenya

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I envision a Kenya where all young people are inspired to believe in themselves and their abilities and are empowered to reach their full potential and realize all their dreams. This is the very core of why the Government of Kenya established the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs and Sports.

Our youth are already exposed to all manner of negative programmes on television, and so providing an alternative program that has an inspirational and motivational standpoint would counter all the negativity in the media. In a bid to motivate and inspire our young people, I propose screening a motivational video program by Jack Canfield to all youth entrepreneurs who have directly benefited from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and to students in secondary schools, polytechnics and public universities across the country. Jack Canfield is a motivational speaker, author and a teacher by training.

So many young people currently live in a state of resignation and despair. It is time to turn that around. We all have the power within us to create the life we want, the life we dream about, the life we were born to live. We all deserve to fulfill our full potential and manifest our true destiny. It is our birthright, but it must be claimed. It must be earned through hard work, and part of that hard work is first learning and then living the time-tested and ageless principles that are guaranteed to bring about our desired results.

Most of us did not learn these principles in school or at church, and only a few of us learned them at home. They have been passed down from person to person by mentors, teachers, coaches and, more recently, in books, seminars, video and audio programs. What if all youth-owned businesses used these principles that would propel them to greater success? What if all students knew these principles and put them into practice in class, on the playing field, and in their social lives? It would be a different world. The youth fund would exceed expectations by creating hugely successful young businessmen and women, and students would excel, thereby providing the world economy with a high-rated workforce.


Young people would take 100% responsibility for their lives and the results they produce or they don’t produce. They would be clear about their visions and their goals. Everyone would persevere in the face of hardship and challenge. Young men and women would band together in teams to support each other to become all that they could be.

The motivational video program will achieve all this and more. A financial services consultant, Charles Schwab once said, “ I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism”.

The greatest gift you can give anyone is a gift of empowerment and love. What could be more loving than helping people you care about get free from their limiting beliefs and ignorance about success, and empowering them to create the life that they truly want from the depths of their soul?

The greatest contribution you can make to the world is to grow in self-awareness, self-realization and the power to manifest your own heartfelt dreams and desires. The next greatest thing you can do is to help others do the same. What a wonderful world it would be if we were all to do that. –Adapted from the ‘The success principles’ by Jack Canfield.

I am also in the process of writing a book titled ‘Being a youth; A guide to the challenges, needs and aspirations of a youth’. Prior to the screening of the video in every school, we will pass out a questionnaire to collect information. The questionnaire will have three questions;

1. What challenges do you face as a young person, physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually, politically, economically and intellectually? (Give seven answers, one for each state, i.e. outline physical challenges, social challenges etc).

2. What are your needs in the physical, social, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, political and economical spheres? (Answer for all spheres).

3. What are your aspirations professionally, politically and socially? (Answer where applicable).

This motivational program is a service to the youth of this country by the youth of this country and will be offered to them free of any charges.