Amadou
Tambedou, child and youth officer of Saamasang Federation, has said entrepreneurship
can solve the unemployment problem that young people are faced with.
“It
is an area that the government and other institutions need to focus on as the
solution to youth unemployment,” he said in an interview with our reporter
after the opening of a five-day entrepreneurship training. It was attended by 25 young people in Brikama
from August 4 to 8, 2016.
The
training was organised by Saamasang Federation, an affiliate of ChildFund
International-The Gambia and was conducted by the National Enterprise
Development Initiative (NEDI), an enterprise arm of the Ministry of Youth and
Sports.
The
training was part of the federation’s three-year action plan to support and
empower youth, children and infants.
Mr
Tambedou further said neither the government nor the private sector can employ
everybody.
“But
entrepreneurship gives the young people the opportunity or the enabling
environment to create employment so they can move from being job seekers to job
creators,” he said.
“We
have to give attention to entrepreneurship because I fully believe that if we
are able to develop that area, we will be able to address the issue of youth
unemployment in the country to some extent,” he added.
Tambedou
said Saamasang Federation has trained more than 150 young people on entrepreneurship
and some of the beneficiaries already have success stories.
“The
federation has changed the lives of many young people in West Coast Region,” he
said, adding that after the training, they normally give startup capital to the
trainees who come up with business plans, through the federation’s Youth
Economic Empowerment Scheme.
“We
do not want to train them and let them go back on the streets unemployed, this
is why we will also support them in developing business plan,” he said.
He
challenged the young people to shift their attention from office job to
entrepreneurship and small-scale enterprises, saying the richest people in the
world are entrepreneurs, not official workers.
Saamasang
Federation, a community-based association, works on child and youth protection
and development and it has been in existence for more than two decades.
Mustapha
Badjie, programme manager at NEDI, said entrepreneurship is the only way a
country can develop and move forward; it is vital in addressing unemployment
problems.
He
said as a tax-based country, The Gambia derives her incomes from entrepreneurs
because they contribute more to the economic development of any country.
“NEDI
and other partners working towards the development of entrepreneurship have to
promote it so that young people can be involved and create enterprises for
themselves and others,” said Mr Badjie, who was also the lead trainer at the
five-day forum.
