Gambia’s
youthful population is about 60%. Their position should be very important to
the development of our nation and their issues should be emphatically outlined
in national policies.
It
is obvious that majority of our young people are participating in irregular
migration to Europe and other parts of the world due to the lack of employment
opportunities in the country. Many Lives have been lost recently in these you g
Peoples’ drive to reach the soil of the western world.
This
should send a signal to the government, private sector players, and other
partners to put more focus on trying to create more employment opportunities to
keep the youths employed in the country as well as prevent future occurrence of
life lost as the country have already mourned enough.
The
Gambia should by now have specialised vocational training centres that can
train young people on different employable
skills in order help them start up their own micro business which will
bring income to them and their families.
Our
young people need to be considered significantly in all spheres of development
process or else the country will
retarded due to non participation of young people and may, in a greater extent
cripple the development process of the nation.
In
majority of Gambian families, young people are the bread winners. Those mean
there should always be opportunities created for them to be engaged in the
economic activities. This could be created by either the private sector or
central government.
Young
people who are not meaningfully engage usually participate in activities that
are ill to the society and opposite to
the needs and liking of the society.
This
have the potential to promote criminal activities in the society, which can
greatly undermine the development
process of our nation.
The
Gambia, like any other country cannot be fully developed without its young people
being engage in positive economic activities.
The government should engaged its development partners to discuss the issues which are significant to the needs and wants of the youth in the country and their participation in nation building is highly important.
