Tekki Fii phases out, after creating jobs for thousands of Gambians

It was launched in April 2019, as a Youth Empowerment Project by the ICT and the joint initiative for Migration Protection and Reintegration by IOM supported by European Union.

In a nutshell, the programme is about helping young people in the country to see the benefits of choosing to ‘make it’ at home rather than risking all that they have at their disposal to seek opportunities in Europe through irregular migration.

At an event held Friday to mark its closure and launch of the National Employment Policy and Action Plan (NEAP 2022 -2026) at the Kairaba Beach Hotel, President Adama Barrow, hailed the programme for its successes, noting that it has built a solid foundation for the youth of the country by creating thousands of job opportunities for self-employment.

President Barrow alluded to the fact that the programme doesn’t only promote attractive employment and income opportunities for young people, but has also created and sustained more jobs to narrow the unemployment gap.

The project, he added, came in a time when the country was struggling with COVID 19 pandemic, even though, the country is still far from recovery from the pandemic as well as the challenges posed by the Russia - Ukraine war. 

On his part, Bakary Badjie, minister for Youth and Sports, noted that despite the challenges confronting youth in the country, young people have all reasons to stay in the country and utilise projects that are at their disposal.

Minister Badjie thanked the Gambia government and the European Union (EU) for collaborating to make the initiative achieve its objective.

He indicated that understanding the situation of young people dictated partners agreement to fund the project that they closed on Friday.

Dorothy Tembo, deputy Executive Director of ICT, said Tekki Fii programme was able to unlock opportunities for thousands of young Gambians as well as businesses to keep growing, saying the impact will increasingly become transformations.

She explained that the implementation of the ‘Tekki Fii’ with more than 40 partners made it possible to deliver results ranging from training institutions to businesses and even support organisations working together to attain a common objective.

 “The Gambia can and will tackle these challenges and succeed with the commitment of ICT. The Government and partners will build a better future by creating economic growth job opportunities for women and youth.” she explained.

Joanna Matine, a representative of Tekk Fii, recalled that the project was launched in 2019 to scale up quality job opportunities available for young Gambians by equipping them with job-ready and entrepreneurship skills in agriculture, tourism, creative industries, construction, ICT and even sports.

“The ‘Tekk fii’ programme created 9,535 jobs and 69% are women, 11,736 people were supported, 4,821 MSMEs were created; 83 schools were targeted to promote opportunities and over 100 million dalasis was disbursed.” she explained.