Othaya Center

Othaya replication centre is located in Othaya Youth Polytechnic at the Othaya Sub-County of Nyeri County. Othaya is one of the former seven districts of Central Province and forms part of Kenya’s eastern highlands. Nyeri County is located approximately 160 km from Nairobi within the direction of the Nairobi/ Nyahururu and Nairobi/Nanyuki road.

It is situated within a valley with Mt. Kenya—the second highest Mountain in Africa on the Eastern side and the Abadare Ranges to its west. In addition to these mountains, there are other smaller hills in the surrounding areas. Nyeri is mainly an agricultural area where most of the residents rely on agricultural activities for livelihoods. The main cash crops are coffee and tea. They also do small scale livestock rearing.

The tea and coffee factories also do create room for employment even though to a lesser extent as compared to other sector industries. However, the level of poverty is higher among the landless and squatters in the county and to a greater extend youth who graduate from school with lack of adequate skills to secure jobs or start their own enterprises. In addition, there is high proportion of poverty among female-headed households in the district especially in the semi arid parts of Kieni East.

Involvement of CAP YEI in Othaya

The center has admitted and trained 13 batches of youth since its inception to date. Othaya has been training on hospitality and automobile but later replaced automobile with security and guarding. Othaya has already enrolled 226 youth in the second phase, 150 completed training, 80.67% succeeded to be placed in jobs, 75 are in internship, and .33% started small businesses.