Youths embark on solidarity walk for employment

The National Council of the Gambia Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and their visiting Finish delegates last Saturday organised a solidarity walk.

The youth employment walk started from the Pipeline mosque along

The solidarity walk, centred on the theme “youth entrepreneurship, a national concern”, was in line with the visit of the Finish YMCA delegation that was on a two-week monitoring mission of their projects in The Gambia.

In his solidarity statement, the national board chairman of the YMCA, Oreme Joiner, expressed gratitude to their partners for making it to the country and trying to help in alleviating the problems of youths.

“Youth employment is a daunting challenge and the YMCA only cannot address it in The Gambia,” he said.

He assures the gathering of mainly youth that the micro-finance project the YMCA has is for them but beneficiaries of loans from the project should pay back monies given to them to let others benefit from the scheme.

Sutay Jawo, deputy, Director of youth and Sports, commended the government of Finland for working with Gambian youth. He says the project will go a long way in helping to address unemployment problems in the country.

Mr Jawo emphasized the need for partnership with the government for the development of the country.

Speaking earlier, a youth delegate from Finland YMCA, Tuomos Nykanen, said the delegation comprises six different local YMCA groups that are part of the Takku Liggey project in The Gambia, funded by their foreign ministry.

According to him, they have been building relationship and working together with YMCA Gambia on different projects. He called on the YMCA to continue the work to lessen youth unemployment.

The project, which was aimed at alleviating poverty by empowering young people with necessary skills to gain employment or be self-employed, is set to run till 2013.