Contribution of Don Bosco Development Outreach Network to the Integral Empowerment of the Catholic Youth in Muranga County, Kenya
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Date
2024-09
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Kenyatta University
Abstract
Youth integral empowerment continues to attract serious global discussion due to the various challenges faced by youth today. These include unemployment, ill-health, and lack of education, drug abuse and crime. This calls for corporate interventions from the government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the Church to initiate programs that are geared towards empowering the youth in all dimensions to restore their dignity. Holistic development of the youth is one of the calls and the mission of the Catholic Church. Through it, the youth are supposed to be developed in all aspects of life. In Kenya, in Murang'a County, the Catholic Church tries to implement this through the Don Bosco Development Outreach Network (DBDON). The study interrogated the contribution of Catholic Church’s DBDON to integral empowerment of the Catholic youth in Murang’a County, Kenya. The study sought to bring to light the activities of DBDON towards Catholic youth integral empowerment in the study area. The study was guided by three objectives. First, it discussed the nature of the Catholic Church DBDON program towards integral empowerment of the Catholic youth in Makuyu. Secondly, it examined challenges faced by DBDON towards integral empowerment of the Catholic youth. Finally, it established the measures that could be taken to curb the challenges facing the DBDON program in integral empowerment of the Catholic youth. The study was guided by Holistic Christian Transformation Theory by Bragg, Samuel, Sugden (2003). The study was carried out in Makuyu, Maragua South Sub- County in Murang'a County. A descriptive survey design was used. Purposive and random samplings were used to select a sample size of 126 respondents from a study population of 185 Catholic youth and leaders of the Don Bosco Makuyu DBDON program. The target population was the Catholic youth who were currently in DBDON at the time of the study, the youth who had benefited from DBDON, the parish priest, and the administration of the DBDON program. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics and represented through tables, pie charts and graphs. Qualitative data was organized into study themes that corresponded with the study’s objectives and later represented in narrative form. The study established that Catholic Church’s DBDON organization had established various programs that promoted youth integral empowerment. Additionally, the Catholic youth acquired skills which enabled them to become self-reliant and reformed. Moreover, the findings revealed that, the DBDON program had impacted the lives of the youth in several ways. Nonetheless, the results indicated that the DBDON program faces several challenges including financial constraints that derail their efforts, inadequate learning resources as well as poor participation. Therefore, the study recommends that the church should take measures to curb the challenges it faces in order to ensure effective youth integral empowerment. It is hoped that the findings of this study would spur a collective responsibility from all stakeholders who include government: the national and county, NGOs, community-based organizations (CBOs) as well as faith-based organizations (FBOs) to be involved in youth integral empowerment since the youth form a segment of the society’s population that is very vital.
Description
A Thesis Submitted to the School of Law, Arts and Social Sciences in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement for the Award of the Degree of Master of Arts in Religious Studies of Kenyatta University, September, 2024