MINISTER of Social Cohesion Dr. George Norton and Minister of Education Dr Nicolette Henry on Wednesday met with members of the Technical Working Group to further coordinate efforts to get the Guyana Youth Corps (GYC) ready for an early 2019 start.

The discussion was held at the Ministry of Education’s Lot 26 Brickdam office and was focused primarily on the Guyana Youth Corps Green Paper. Timelines were decided and responsibilities assigned to members of the working group so that the Guyana Youth Corps can begin in the first quarter of 2019.

The GYC, which will fall under the Ministry of the Presidency, Department of Social Cohesion, will target youths between the ages of 16 to 24 that are unemployed and not in formal education or training.

Some of the goals of the Guyana Youth Corps are to inculcate in youth an understanding of their role in the promotion of civic awareness; to train and empower youth at all levels to foster sustainable development of their communities and eventually that of the country and to provide youth with the opportunity to garner knowledge and hands-on training in entrepreneurship, literacy, numeracy and vocational skills to enable them to make the transition to adulthood.

Under the program, youths will be trained for one year. The levels of training will include apprenticeship, traineeship and internship. The reach of the program will span all 10 administrative regions. However, the main office and campus will be at the Kuru Kuru Training Centre.

Successful graduates of the program will be placed into one of three categories which are employment, entrepreneurship or higher training.

It will be the vision of the Guyana Youth Corps to foster a spirit of nation-building, a culture of service, a sense of nationhood and engendering a new form of patriotism.

The Ministries and Departments represented at today’s meeting include the Ministry of Education, Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Social Cohesion and Department of Public Service, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs and the Ministry of Communities. However, it is intended that all ministries will play their respective roles in this program.