Badjie was speaking at a youth forum in Banjul recently.
He said the government has been committed to providing opportunities for young people to develop their skills and talents.
“As a Ministry in charge of Youth Affairs and the Government under the leadership of President Adama Barrow, we are cognizant of the challenges confronting Gambian youths and we stand ready to provide the policy environment and the needed funding where possible to support young people through the most difficult phase of their lives,” he said.
“We want to see through it that the majority of young people are nationalists in character and in accent as well as adequately trained to cater to both the formal and informal sectors of the economy and the general development of The Gambia.
“This is a responsibility that we have as a government and a responsibility that we want to take charge of but doing that in collaboration with organizations like the Banjul Youth Diplomacy Conference and all other organizations that exist in The Gambia.
“This is proven by the government’s intervention in ensuring that we invest in the higher education sector to the construction of the University of the Gambia and the transformation of GTTI and the MDI into universities so as to position them to cater to the education of young folks.”
Badjie assured the youth that the government “will be ready” to receive the conclusions of the dialogue and would collaborate with them for the implementation of the recommendations that would be in the community from the conference.
The Ministry of Youths and Sports had launched a youth revolving grant and scheme that supported young people who were in business and those running startups.
He said he had been investing in the sports sector by ensuring the government took its rightful responsibility and funded the activities of the national teams. “These include football, basketball, athletics, and volleyball,” Minister Badjie assured, saying: “We are investing in developing the infrastructure both in the urban and in rural areas. This is so because we know that young people have an interest in sport, and not just as a recreational activity.
It is also an adventure that has an economic impact in terms of empowering athletes, their families, and their communities once they reach the elite level.”
He nonetheless highlighted some of the challenges Gambian youth face in their daily activities.
Badjie said the youth battle with many social challenges and social biases such as lack of adequate educational opportunities, unemployment and underemployment, and lack of social safety nets, among others.
The effect of these social problems leads young people to be antisocial or delinquent and end up abusing drugs, and sometimes dropping out of school, the Minister said.
He believes that these circumstances are not just affecting young people; they also affect society because they have an impact on the peaceful nature of the country as well as on the cost of health owing to the ramifications.
“With the above,” the youth minister considered, “one can conclude that a lot of attention should be directed towards this category of the population with a view to cater to their needs in a more strategic, coordinated, sustainable manner and with a view to ensure that educational skills and vocational training opportunities are available. And after that phase of education, they are supported with grants and other incentives to establish small businesses to help them to grow.”
