By Mercy Korir
Ashura Michael is the Disability and Inclusion Advisor in the United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office (UNRCO) in Kenya. Her work shows how circumstances, not ambition, divides young people.
Kenya loses about US$7.7 billion a year because persons with disabilities are shut out of work, education and public life. Ashura Michael knows the figure well. She worked it out.
Ms Michael -A deaf lawyer, analysed the economic impact of disability exclusion soon after joining the UN.
"When I first came to the UN workspace, I analysed the economic impact of persons with disabilities," she said. For her, the findings showed how much a person's opportunities depend on the structures around them.
Her analysis has since fed into a Joint Disability Inclusion Strategy that brings together 78 organizations. "Under this strategy, we have five specific pillars," she said. They cover economic empowerment, digital accessibility, political participation and governance, access to facilities and services, and data.
This year also marks the 20th anniversary since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The convention emphasizes the importance of mainstreaming disability issues as an integral part of relevant strategies of sustainable development.
Ms Michael's story reflects a wider truth about young people everywhere. Their circumstances differ, but their aspirations largely do not. Where a young person is born, their family's income, their access to technology, a disability or exposure to crisis can decide whether they get a fair chance.
That was the message of this year¡¯s International Youth Day, themed "Different Contexts, Common Aspirations." Young people live in very different conditions, yet many want the same things: to learn, to find decent work, to have a say in decisions that affect them, and to build a sustainable future.
The gaps are wide. Globally, young people are nearly three times more likely than adults to be unemployed. The International Labour Organization's Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 found that only one in five young workers aged 25 to 29 in low-income countries has regular paid employment. In high-income countries, it is four in five.
The digital divide is just as stark. In 2023, 93 per cent of people in high-income countries used the internet, compared with 35 per cent in least developed countries, where only 34 per cent of young people were online. Being connected opens doors to education, jobs, entrepreneurship, digital finance and civic life. Being offline closes them.
The pressures are also growing. The 2025 identifies climate change and environmental crises as rising causes of psychological distress among young people.
Yet young people are not only living with these challenges. They are answering them. Around the world, youth-led organizations are working on climate adaptation, disaster response, entrepreneurship and community development, using digital tools, social enterprises and grassroots networks.
For Ms Michael, inclusion means building systems that last, so that aspiration becomes opportunity. Her work carries a central message for persons with disability: young people may face different barriers, but what they hope for is shared.
