The Uzalendo ‘Youth Patriots’ project is an offshoot of a broader Youth Alive! Kenya’s Youth leadership Programme implemented in the year 2008 in Nairobi and Kisumu cities of Kenya.  The project was been developed in response to the increasing disillusionment of the Kenyan citizenry especially young people with the public policy process. Core areas of concerns include failed leadership that has become unresponsive to public priorities and insensitive to the prevailing economic and social and political conditions. Also of concern are the weak public system and institutional structures that are unable to ensure the effective delivery of services and are ineffective in stemming corruption and promoting accountability. Compounded by lack of information and general apathy by youth to public policy processes, there has been a growing need for action to reorient the direction public policy to ensure it addresses the needs and priorities of the public.

Driven by the desire to increase the demand for accountability from the government systems and institutions on one hand and improve the sensitivity and responsiveness of these systems and institutions to priorities of young people in Kenya, the project seeks to harness the social capital around young people in Kenya to influence the direction and processes of public policy in Kenya to enable it to be in tandem with the priorities of citizens and specifically young people.  The project aims at mobilizing a wide variety of actors both as targets and collaborators in the process. Primarily driven by young people, the project is engaging citizen organizations led by young people, government agencies and institutions involved in the formulation and implementation of public policy and other non-state actors working on the priority issues identified under the Kenya National Youth Policy. The project commenced in May 2009 and schedule to run for an initial period of 12 months with funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).