As the recruitment of 15,000 volunteer servicemen and women to join the National Youth Service (NYS) continues across the country, most youths in Thika, Kiambu County turned up for the exercise at Thika stadium on Tuesday.
They underwent thorough vetting, with their academic documents and bodies scrutinised.
However, nearly three of them were turned away for having tattoos on their bodies.
Even though they met academic qualifications, they were found ineligible because of the body arts.
Peterson Mwangi, who was among those disqualified because of the tattoo expressed his disappointment, saying he got the body art while in secondary school, when it was fashionable.
He recalled how he declined to heed to his parents’ call not to have the tatoo, a decision that he now regrets years after completion of school.
They called on tattoo experts to help them remove the body marks so as to qualify for opportunities offered by the government.
Other candidates were disqualified because of errors in their national identity cards, most of which read their area of birth being far away from the recruitment centre.
Although there was a low turnout, most of the youths said they had shown up to seize the opportunities offered after completion of the NYS training.
Zachary Mwangi, a youth leader from Thika, Kiambu County called on parents to help their children in national identification registration to avert the errors that disqualify them from NYS opportunities.
He further pleaded with parents to caution their children from tattooing their bodies which saw most youths disqualified from joining the service.
NYS recruitment exercise has been ongoing since yesterday in all the sub counties each of the wards has been awarded 33 slots based on the population as per the distribution schedule released by the government.
