President Uhuru directs implementation of Mind Education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z4ABR3cb_Q&feature=youtu.be
On Tuesday 15th September 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta called for the implementation of mind education as a way to scale up psychosocial support for the youth. The Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and the Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth have been tasked with the objective of implementing the program in Kenya.
Kenya has been grappling with deterioration of the mental health conditions among the citizens especially amongst the youth, specifically during the Covid 19 pandemic. This has led to increased cases of self-destructing behavior among the youths. The government in its effort to improve this put up a mental health taskforce in December 2019 under the Ministry of Health to come up with ways of to scale up the psychosocial support needed. Today the International Youth Fellowship has been tasked to provide necessary support to the task force.
Virtual meeting held between the Founder of IYF Rev. Dr Ock Soo Park and President Uhuru Kenyatta
“The task force was to asses Kenya’s mental health systems and consider the threats to mental wellbeing such as substance abuse, sexual abuse & gender violence and child abuse and neglect. As we implement the recommendations that the task force has submitted I invite you to consider scaling up the mindset program in Kenya to help us strengthen psychosocial support for the youth”
With the new education curriculum still taking shape in the country, the President has also lauded the mind education program as a solution to the moral and character decay among the youths.
“This curriculum aims to strengthen both cognitive and psychosocial skills, this includes; communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, imagination and creativity, citizenship, learning to learn and digital literacy. This transition to the competence-based curriculum presents an opportunity for the mindset education to enrich this new curriculum. And so going forward I expect as a government to deepen our collaboration as we position character education as a catalyst for the transformation of our nation”
The founder of International Youth Fellowship Dr. Ock Soo Park while speaking during the meeting has indicated the greatest problem has lack of contemplation among the youths globally with Africa being the greatest affected.
"The first thing I want to teach the Kenyan youth is contemplation. Ever since we started the training in Kenyan prisons there has been a great change. Once we plant the clean and radiant heart and the heart to contemplate, this is the best harvest. Once they have the healthy contemplation am sure Kenya will be the best in solving problems of character”
Speaking on behalf of the President, the Cabinet Secretary of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs Joseph Mucheru has indicated that the interventions of the government training on life skills among the youth cannot be effective without psychosocial support.
The virtual meeting was organized by the Office of the President and was attended by the Founder of IYF and Mindset Education in South Korea, Rev. Dr. Ock Soo Park, Youth CS Joseph Mucheru EGH, Mr. Julius Korir CBS, Principal Secretary , Raymond Ochieng Secretary Youth Affairs , State Department for Youth, Ministry of Education, Prof. George Magoha, Ruth Kagia, Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of the President and Yohan Kim Chairman, IYF EAST Africa.