Almost 300 Region 9 youths to receive skills training

Last Updated on Saturday, 26 December 2015, 21:01 by GxMedia

Two hundred and ninety-eight Region Nine youths will begin receiving entrepreneurial training in the next two weeks as part of a government programme to assist economic development in their communities.

This followed the launch of the Region Nine phase of the $200M Youth Apprenticeship and Entrepreneurial Programme on Sunday by Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai at St. Ignatius, GINA reported.

During her address, Minister Sukhai explained that even as the YAEP addressed youth development and empowerment, it was also aimed at ensuring secure indigenous livelihoods by developing the capacity of the youth, to match and support the development of enterprise initiatives needed or being embarked upon within their communities and region.

The goal is to equip the youths with skills that will support them setting up their own economic ventures in their communities or provide them with the competence to support the economic enterprises already in place in the communities.

Minister Sukhai also pointed out that educating the youths, will result in a corps of skilled  youth resource based in each village that not only support infrastructure development but can be a pool from which the village can draw from, for future leadership and governance, GINA said.

Each participant will receive a monthly stipend of $30,000. They will also meet at the level of their district at least twice monthly for group training sessions, which will be conducted by experts from the different ministries and agencies.

The YAEP is a new initiative under Budget 2013 and is spearheaded by the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs. It targets a total of 2500 indigenous youths for training and is being rolled out in Regions 7, 8, 9 and 10 with the other launches set to happen over the next two weeks.