Safaricom has expanded its youth skills initiative, Hook Circle, to Kiambu National Polytechnic, marking another stop in a programme that has now reached more than one million young Kenyans since it began.
A Programme Built to Scale
Hook Circle started in 2023 as a series of empowerment boot camps connecting young people to opportunities in technology, career development, entrepreneurship, and culture. Since then, it has grown steadily, touching young people in Nairobi, Mombasa, Meru, Kakamega, Siaya, and Nyeri counties. The latest event at Kiambu National Polytechnic brought the same mix of technical training and career guidance to another group of students, continuing a pattern that has defined the programme’s rollout across the country.
Safaricom says the goal is to eventually extend Hook Circle to all 47 counties in Kenya, a scale that would make it one of the most far-reaching youth skills interventions run by a private company in the region. The company has not given a firm timeline for reaching every county, but the pace of expansion so far suggests it intends to keep adding new locations regularly.
Skills for a Changing Job Market
The sessions bring together educators, technology partners, and private sector organisations, reflecting a growing consensus that preparing young people for work now takes more than classroom learning alone. Training at these events has included certification in fields such as engineering and information and communication technology, giving participants credentials they can apply either in the job market or in further studies.
Young Kenyans between the ages of 10 and 24 can join the Hook community by dialling a short code or signing up through the Safaricom App, making the programme accessible beyond the physical boot camp locations. This digital entry point matters in a country where reaching every young person in person would be slow and costly, and it allows Safaricom to keep a channel open with participants even after a specific event ends.
Part of a Broader Youth Investment
Hook Circle sits alongside other youth-focused efforts Safaricom has backed in recent years, including partnerships aimed at training software developers and connecting graduates to job opportunities across the continent. Kenya’s youth unemployment challenge has long been a pressing policy concern, with a large share of the country’s jobless population falling under the age of thirty-five. Programmes like this one are part of a wider push by telecom operators and technology companies to close the gap between what young people learn and what employers actually need.
The involvement of technology partners at these sessions also points to an effort to keep the training aligned with real hiring demand, rather than teaching skills disconnected from the market. Whether that translates into measurable job placements over time will likely determine how much credit the programme ultimately earns beyond its headline enrollment numbers.
