Saamasang Youth and Children Development Association (SYCDA) recently held its 4th Annual Youth and Children Forum (Bantaba) at the Federation’s Nursery School in Brikama.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Director of Saamasang Federation, Edrisa Cham, said young people constitute approximately 60% or more of the Gambian population.
Youth are the fabric of society and the most important catalyst to development ventures, he says, adding that through their creativity, talents and labour force youth groups can make giant strides in economic development and socio-political attainments.
He said: “It is important to note that full and complete development requires maximum participation of all and sundry, especially the young people.”
The Samasang Federation director said that Saamasang/ChildFund is investing in young people with the intent of enhancing “Skilled and Involved Youths”.
He stated that Saamasang and its parent’s organization Child Fund are looking forward to seeing young people acquire skills and enterprise development.
Mr Cham stated that their interventions seek to improve the wellbeing of young people by facilitating their effective contribution to the socio-economic development of the country through self-reliance, confidence, and knowledge and skills accusation.
“We need to put in place measures to eliminate aid dependency in the long term by designing effective and efficient ‘Aid Exit’ strategies supported by efficient and effective domestic resource mobilization efforts,” he informed young people.
He concluded by saying that, “Saamasang will be looking forward to seeing your plans and the way forward in attaining ‘Attitudinal change’ to enhance sustainable development whilst combating drug abuse and crime”.
The Public Relations Officer of Saamasang, Dembo Kambi, in his remarks, said: “The aim of forming this together association is to bring young people of Kombo Central together under one umbrella to lead in their own development. In doing so, we hope to attain three main objectives that are vital to the development of the country.”
African youth are led to serfdom
The African youth are in a big dilemma.
They witness their elderly leaders detain dissenting voices without due process; rob the populace through corruption; engage in electoral fraud; massacre populations and even bomb them as is the recent case in Libya.
One would have thought that toys and toy games belong to the youthful.
