In bringing this mobile community to Kenya, Praekelt Foundation partnered with integrated communications firm, Safaricom. This partnership allows young Kenyans to share and discuss the issues they confront daily, via their mobile phone.
YoungAfricaLive has already been launched by Vodacom South Africa and Tanzania, in Kenya it is now available through Safaricom's SafaricomLIVE portal on www.safaricom.com/wap.
A 2005 study showed that 60% of Kenya's unemployed are under 30, and where UNICEF statistics reveal 20% of the population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day. In addition, research published by the World Bank indicates that 6.3% of Kenya's popular of 40.5 million is HIV positive, many of those young people.
Safaricom's director of Corporate Affairs, Nzioka Waita says, "This partnership is key to our digital inclusion agenda. We believe that the best way to improve the utility and therefore take-up of the internet among the youth of Africa and Kenya in particular, is by having relevant content on it and making it accessible to them. Being in the vanguard of the internet explosion in Kenya, we have the network to deliver YoungAfricaLive's socially relevant and well-packaged message to as many young Kenyans as possible."
Safaricom has invested in bringing internet access to the Kenyan people. According to government data, nine out of every ten Kenyans who access the internet regularly do so through the Safaricom network.
"To follow-up a very successful launch in Tanzania late last year with YoungAfricaLive: Kenya is a great way to start 2012," says Gustav Praekelt, founder of the Praekelt Foundation. "We are confident that young Kenyans will embrace the mobile platform with the same passion that their South African and Tanzanian counterparts have and use it to create a community that informs, supports and entertains."
For more, go to www.yal.co.ke
