ABSTRACT
Entrepreneurship is a near practical solution to the ever increasing joblessness among the youth. Efforts to engage Kenyan youths successfully in this direction has however remained a mirage as some of the monies channeled for this purpose through the YEDF is not taken up as expected. The net result is an escalation of youth unemployment aggravating social evils like crime, increased drug use and abuse etc. The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between youth awareness and uptake of YEDF in Kajiado County. The specific objectives were to find out the sources of funds for youth enterprises in Kitengela location, investigate the levels of youth awareness on YEDF, analyze the uptake of YEDF and to establish the challenges that hinder the youth from accessing YEDF in Kitengela location. The study population was all youth owned enterprises in Kitengela location, Kajiado County. The sample size was 45. Stratified sampling was used whereby the researcher used a census of all the 8 enterprises that have benefited from YEFD and purposively another 8 youth owned enterprises.10 youths and 2 YEDF officials were purposively selected for the focus group discussions. The researcher used questionnaires and interview schedules to collect data. Descriptive research design was used in the study. Data analysis was done using both descriptive and inferential statistics for quantitative data by use of Statistical Package of Social Scientists Program (SPSS) and content analysis for qualitative data. Presentation of data was done using Frequency distribution tables, percentages, pie charts and graphs. The Pearson’s product moment was used to establish the strength and direction of the relationship between the two variables. The findings were that the correlation between awareness and uptake was r=-0.216, indicating that both the levels of awareness and uptake are very low in Kajiado County, and the relationship between the variables is also very weak. Therefore change in awareness does not cause any significant changes in uptake as the awareness levels are still very low. It also means that unless the increase in awareness is significant, uptake will still remain low. The study revealed that the most common sources of capital for youth entrepreneurs are family and friends, personal savings, group contributions, chama and welfare loans, YEDF, M-pesa, M-shwari, Tala and Branch. The levels of awareness and uptake are very poor (78%) and there are several challenges that hinder the youth from accessing the fund such as lack of information pertaining to the fund, lack of visible YEDF structures, long and tedious application process and lack of social networks to link them to the fund. Lack of entrepreneurship skills, inability to meet the YEDF requirements.. The study concluded that youths prefer capital that is cheap, and has a flexible repayment plan. The study recommended that YEDF should use flexible repayment plan as their main marketing strategy to attract more youths, market the fund more aggressively by using commonly used social media such as facebook, twitter, instagram in order to reach the youth, develop a mobile application for easier borrowing and loan repayment and set up its own offices and training centers in every county with clear sign posts indicating their location so that they are visible.
