Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am indeed delighted to be with you today and to lay the foundation stone for the proposed Kariko pastoral center and school hostel. The laying of the foundation stone is testimony of the expanding role of the Catholic Church in providing spiritual nourishment, education facilities and other forms of support to disadvantaged children.

I take this opportunity to thank the Kariko Catholic Parish for taking this initiative. I also thank the local community for committing to raise 2 million Kenya Shillings towards this project. I am confident that through our collective efforts, we shall realize the total sum of 6 million Kenya Shillings needed to complete the project.

I am also confident that the successful completion of this project will be of immense service not only to the present but also the future generations of our youth. Our youth need all the necessary facilities they can get to develop body and mind, and to acquire the necessary skills they need to cope with life in the new information society. Moreover, national development is impossible without the skillful deployment of the boundless energies of our youth. In Kenya today, young people in the age bracket of 1- 30 years constitute 75 per cent of the country's population. This makes them the largest segment of our human resource base. As a nation, therefore, we must harness the energies, enthusiasm and creative abilities of youth in order to succeed in the task of nation building.

On this occasion, therefore, I would like to call upon us all to dedicate ourselves to nurturing our young people to enable them lead full lives and contribute to national development. This will entail addressing the challenges that they face, the most important of which include early childhood up bringing, health, education and drug abuse.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In seeking to develop the youth and shape them into responsible and productive citizens, we must pay particular attention to early childhood development. This is because a child's future is largely determined in the first six years of life. This places an important responsibility on parents to ensure their children acquire the right values and attitudes early in life. To succeed in this, parents must themselves possess right values that will act as the basis for shaping their children's character. These values must include personal discipline as well as the values embodied in all the world's religions. I challenge parents, therefore, to ensure that their children understand their responsibility to God in order to grow into adults who are obedient to God and the laws of society.

Besides early childhood development, education represents the next critical requirement in the development of our youth. In providing education, we must place emphasis on quality education, which should aim at providing life skills and preparing young people more adequately for participating in the labour market. I am happy to note that since the Government introduced the policy of free primary education, enrollment in schools have increased tremendously. Today, we have 7.6 million children in formal public primary schools and another 350,000 in non-formal schools. In spite of this progress, poverty, gender inequality and access to education in rural areas remain major barriers to schooling. I, therefore, call on all stakeholders to support the Government's efforts in ensuring that we achieve the goal of universal education by 2015.

In this regard, I once again welcome the efforts of the church in supplementing the efforts of the Government in providing education. I urge the church and other stakeholders, including development partners, to support the Government in increasing school bursary provision for needy students, improving existing training facilities for the youth and establishing enough special schools and rehabilitation centres to cater for the youth in special circumstances. Other areas of partnership include enforcing the re-admission policy for girls who drop out of school due to pregnancy and creating linkages between educational institutions and the private sector through research, internship opportunities and financing.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Health also represents a major challenge facing the youth. In addition to the traditional health problems like malaria and tuberculosis, the spread of HIV/AIDS has become an issue of major concern. It is estimated that more than 75 per cent of people infected with AIDS in the country are aged 20 to 45 years. About 33 per cent of all AIDS cases reported are of young people aged 15-30 years. Other reproductive health challenges include teenage pregnancies and abortion. It is sad to note that many of our young girls use pregnancy control drugs, which are available over the counter. This makes them more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections because they concentrate on prevention of pregnancy and overlook the risk of getting infected.

Again, partnership between the Government, the Church and other stakeholders, is required in addressing this challenge. The Government is planning a wide range of measures to address health challenges among the youth. These include promoting and establishing home and community-based welfare programmes to help youth orphaned by HIV/AIDS and supporting youth campaigns aimed at changing sexual behaviour. Other planned measures include establishing affordable rehabilitation centres to help youth addicted to drugs, improving the technical and institutional capacity of youth organisations to enable them effectively promote health programmes for youth and establishing guidance and counseling units managed by the youth in all learning institutions. I appeal to the civil society as well as the private sector to support the government in these efforts. On their part, I urge the youth to abstain from sexual activity, avoid the use of harmful substances and resist various forms of peer pressure that can compromise their health.

In conclusion, I wish to assure the youth in the country that the Government is fully aware of the challenges facing them and is committed to developing and implementing strategies that will give them a real chance to develop, acquire education and find decent and productive work. I urge the youth to cooperate and support the Government in its efforts to provide an enabling environment for them to realize their full potential.

Thank You and God bless you all