As the recruitment of 15,000 volunteer servicemen and women to join the National Youth Service (NYS) continues across the country, most youths in Thika, Kiambu County were on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, disqualified because they had tattoos on various parts of their bodies.
Although most of them met the academic and physical fitness test, they were later found ineligible because of the body arts.
According to the disqualified youths, most of them got tattooed while in secondary school when the fashionable art was not a big deal.
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Led by Peterson Kamande, the youths said they declined to heed their parents' call not to have the body arts inscribed on their bodies, a situation they have come to regret years after completion of school.
While calling on experts to help them remove the tattoos to qualify for opportunities offered by the government, the youths regretted having been edged out because of failing to heed to their parents’ advice.
“I was disqualified because I have a tattoo which was injected right when I was in high school. My parents had warned me about it but it has finally come to cost me. I’m now looking for an expert to have it removed because I am losing government opportunities,” said Kamande.
Others were disqualified because of errors in their national identity cards, most of which read their area of birth being far away from the recruitment centre.
Although the exercise was fair, according to Eliud Mwangi who had turned up for the recruitment, small mistakes made so many of them go home regretting.
Although there was a low turnout compared to the population of Thika, most of the youths said they had shown up to seize the opportunities offered after completion of the NYS training.
Ruto's directive on NYS
They stated that President William Ruto’s directive to have the National Police Service, Kenya Defence Forces, Kenya Wildlife Service and Kenya Forestry Service recruit 80 per cent of their pool from NYS saw them come out to grab the opportunities.
“We came out to join NYS for us to further qualify to join various disciplined services as promised by the president. We are happy that NYS is now creating opportunities for the youths,” stated Mwangi.
Zachary Mwangi, a youth leader from Thika, Kiambu County called on parents to help their children in national identification registration to avert the errors that cost their children from qualifying for the NYS opportunities.
He further pleaded with parents to free their children from tattooing their bodies which saw most youths disqualified from joining the service.
“Thika had 107 slots but the turnout was not very pleasing. Most of those who turned up were disqualified for among other things having tattoos on their hands, chests among other parts of the body, discrepancies in their national identification cards and low academic grades,” noted Mwangi.
NYS recruitment exercise has been ongoing since Monday in all the sub-counties where each of the 1,450 wards has been awarded 33 slots based on the population as per the distribution schedule released by the government.
