– entrepreneurship, skills training and leadership primary priorities

National development is synonymous with human development and the development of youth is an integral part of this process. The Government of Guyana embraces this responsibility and continually invests in its youths by providing opportunities for them to attain quality education, boost their skills sets and provide an enabling environment for entrepreneurship and investment.

Through the Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Youth, the Government has built capacity to implement several programmes geared towards the development of youth in various sectors. In his most recent address to the National Assembly, on October 18, 2018, President David Granger reminded the gathering that youth is a priority on the agenda for his Executive.

“Your Government has launched a number of initiatives aimed at stimulating employment, including youth employment, through the promotion of entrepreneurship, self-employment and skills training,” he said.

Education, training and opportunity
The President further articulated that opportunities are also being provided for hinterland youth in far-flung communities to benefit and to contribute to nation-building. “The Hinterland Employment Youth Service (HEYS), provides Indigenous youth with opportunities to acquire income-earning skills. A total of 3,941 youth, between the ages of 18 and 35, benefit from this programme, which has created 2,051 businesses over the past two years, he said.

According to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs website, the programme is an intensive peer learning and exchange opportunity where persons teach, discuss, learn and exchange experiences and knowledge from a repository of information in order to improve their standard of living and contribute positively to the development of their communities. It utilises an integrated and progressive approach to learning, which seeks to empower youth and young adults, who, in some cases, need a second chance to maximize their full potential socially and economically.

President Granger noted that “The Government has provided community skills training in electrical installation, food preparation, information technology, leather craft, plumbing, poultry-rearing and other areas. The Youth Entrepreneurial Skills Training Programme (YEST), since September 2017, has trained an additional 721 youth attached to the Sophia Training Centre, the Kuru Kuru Training Centre and the Vryman’s Erven Training Centre. These programmes complement the other technical and vocational training services being provided by government and which also benefit young persons”.

Director of Youth, Ms. Melissa Carmichael says that the Department of Youth has as a primary goal; to empower young people. “The Department of Youth is mandated to provide activities and initiatives that seek to empower young people to, in turn, have them make meaningful contributions in their communities and wherever they are placed… If we have been following His Excellency and other Ministers, we would know by now that the Government of Guyana is interested in the empowerment and development of its young people and they have been putting monies into various sectors, various ministries and agencies to develop programmes and initiatives for young people. So, the drive, or the focus, is to ensure that young people become entrepreneurs or to educate and to train [them] to ensure that they can access job opportunities within the relevant markets,” she said.

The Ministry of Social Protection has also been working closely with vulnerable and at-risk youth, with the view of helping them become productive members of society. Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry’s Board of Industrial Training (BIT) Mr. Richard Maughn, said that under the National Training Project for Youth Empowerment (NTPYE), BIT has helped many young persons who, when they started the programmes suffered from low self-esteem. First, he said, the facilitators had to change the participants’ mindsets, then embark on remedial training.

Additionally, this year, the Department of Youth hosted its first National Youth Conference which brought together 300 young people from across all Ten Administrative Regions to engage first-hand with policymakers and contributors to national development. Several of the recommendations that evolved from the forum will be given consideration by the various subject ministries.

The Department also hosted the first National Youth Business Summit on May 23-24, which provided a hub for young entrepreneurs to start or expand their own businesses. It successfully executed the Youth Innovation Project, literacy and numeracy workshops, trained young people in the area of agro-processing, administered night schools, the President’s Youth Award: Republic of Guyana (PYARG) programme. It also collaborated with STEM Guyana on a venture to train out-of-school youth in Robotics and successfully executed leadership camps.

Youth service
The Youth Leadership Training Programme which commenced in 2015, has empowered a total of 1,200 young people from across the country. The training touched on areas including critical thinking, governance and democracy, and administrative procedures.

Mr. Orin Nelson, who was among the first batch of graduates from the Youth Leadership Training, held at the Madewini Training Centre, says that it has spurred his interest in youth activities and service. Since the close of his course, Mr. Nelson has become the Programme Coordinator of the Sophia Night School. “I do not live in Sophia but I’m doing work in Sophia helping at-risk youth, underprivileged youth, and giving young people a second chance to get a secondary education,” he said.

Youth entrepreneurship
Ms. Melissa Blair, who is enrolled in the school, said that she stopped formal schooling to work after her step-father died so that she could contribute to her home. She said that the school has given her a second chance to pursue her education and she is elated.

“The experience is great, the teachers are awesome, sometimes they even sacrifice Saturdays to come out and help us and sometimes they go extra hours just to get things right and make us learn… My next step is to go to the University of Guyana to do [Accounting]. I want to be an accountant or a pay clerk,” she said.

Twenty-three-year-old Ms. Maleka Russell of Kwakwani, Upper Demerara- Berbice (Region 10), who is a beneficiary of the Youth Innovation Project of Guyana (YIPoG) was keen to share how it has helped her to advance her business.

The YIPoG aims to foster and support the design, development and production of innovative ideas through Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Archaeology, Anthropology, Architecture, Arts, Mathematics and Spirituality. Thirty youth groups and individuals have benefited from the $45 million grant this year.

According to Ms. Russell, “We are trying to make sorrel into a more value-added product on the market. As [you] see, we can only find sorrel in its natural state. However, we are trying to add value. What we are trying to do is to make a sorrel powder out of the sorrel. It is like the regular Tandy or Maxi that you will find on the market but the difference is that it is going to be a local product and it is going to be produced by us youths.” Over the past year, Ms. Russell and fellow community members have collaborated with the Department of Youth to discuss youth policy and development.

Youth are a valuable resource to be developed and as a result must among other things, take priority in the agenda of any Government in its path to national development. This is a reality that is embraced by our national Government and is evident in the Government’s continuous investment in its youthful human capital.