YoungAfricaLive (YAL), a portal that aims to give young people a platform to engage on topics including love, sexual health, gender, relationships and other relevant issues, has gone live in Kenya.
In bringing the mobile community to Kenya, the Praekelt Foundation has partnered with integrated communications firm, Safaricom. This partnership allows young Kenyans to share and discuss the issues they confront daily, via their mobile phones.
Vodacom has already rolled out YAL in SA and Tanzania. It is now available in Kenya through Safaricom's SafaricomLIVE portal.
A 2005 study showed that 60% of Kenya's unemployed are under 30, and Unicef statistics reveal that 20% of the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day. In addition, research published by the World Bank indicates that 6.3% of Kenya's population of 40.5 million is HIV-positive, and many of those are young people.
Says Nzioka Waita, Safaricom's director of corporate affairs: “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 heavily in bringing Internet access to the Kenyan people. According to government data, nine out of every 10 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.”
Unveiled by the Praekelt Foundation in 2009 in SA, YAL started out as a way of providing young South Africans with free access to information on love, sex and relationships, in a time when HIV/Aids is a major concern, through their mobile devices.
It has now evolved into a community of engaged young people who use YAL to gain reliable information, discuss issues, have fun and gain the support and input of their peers.
YAL SA, in partnership with Vodacom, has close to one million unique users, while YAL Tanzania (also in partnership with Vodacom) has already established a strong presence in the country, with a steadily growing user base, since its launch on 1 December 2011.
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