Abstract:
Members of Youth groups in Kenya are among the economically vulnerable people that require funding to deal with the twin challenge of poverty and unemployment. It was for this reason, the government of Kenya recognized the value of credit and financial services to the poor Youth in enabling them invest in activities that generate income to meet social and economic obligations, established Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF).The study was to investigate the determinant of individual member‟s socio economic empowerment in funded Youth group in Embu County. The study determinant was derived from the strategic theory of resource based view, the model of positive youth development and empirical literature on the process of empowerment in group funding. The study employed a mix of quantitative and descriptive research designs. Multi-stage simple random sampling was used to get 438 members of youth groups. The sampled comprised individual youth members of funded groups from the funded and non- funded but had applied for funding from Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF).The Primary data was collected using structured questionnaire. Measures of central tendency were the mean; standard deviations were used to identify the distribution of the collected data. Statistical analyst Tests such as T-tests and regression analysis model were used to examine the random sample of the population of the individual members of the funded youth group. The significant level was set at 0.05 to reject or accept the null hypothesis. The study results showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between group funding and individual member‟s socio-economic empowerment of after joining funded youth group. The findings on the study variables; access to credit, business capacity building, participation in group activities and group support system in funded youth group showed that they were positive predictors of individual socio economic empowerment when in group funding situations in addition to having a significant relationship with individual member‟s socio economic empowerment. However, the relationship was negative between the interactions of group funding and the study variable and individual socio-economic empowerment were made to interact together. The study recommends a creation of microfinance strategy that will deliver credit on on-going basis and that provide targeted business capacity training model to Youth in groups that support youth groups‟ dynamism to enhance their socio economic empowerment for a sustainable socio- economic development. Further study is recommending a research on the negative effect of group funding interaction on the individual members‟ socio economic empowerment in group funding condition.
