SPECIALISTS in Sustained Youth Development and Research (SSYDR) Inc. has partnered with ExxonMobil Guyana, once again, to host a job readiness camp for young people, this time virtually given the COVID-19 global pandemic.
“Employment Attack 102” targets 150 participants from secondary schools within Regions Two, Three, Four, Six and 10, a release said. SSYDR Founder and Executive Director, Magda Fiona Wills said this initiative is aimed at reducing poverty and its negative impact on the Guyanese youth population.

“Helping one child can change the faith of a family, a community and a nation. The potential transformation from engaging 450 youth is unimaginable,” she said. Some 300 youth have benefitted from this camp from the onset, coming from across Regions Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and 10.
Wills explained that the programme was prompted by the fact that youth represent the largest majority of the unemployed in Guyana. Employment Attack 102 has two components: coaching towards livelihood opportunities and work-ready training. As such, participants are assigned coaches and together they develop an ‘individual livelihood plan’ which allows them to identify short and long-term goals and to map out the process of achieving these goals.

Concurrently, participants will also be exposed to seven modules for work readiness: personal development, interpersonal communication, work habits and conduct, leadership and teamwork, safety and health at work, rights and responsibilities of workers and employers and financial fitness over a one-month period.
“Employment Attack 102 is exactly the type of transformative programme that ExxonMobil Guyana seeks to support,” said Community Relations Manager, Suzanne De Abreu.

“The future of Guyana’s development is heavily dependent on the ability of our young people to become job-ready and position themselves well in the job marketplace,” she said.
Meanwhile, participants will have the use of smart phones and data plans to facilitate online training. SSYDR Inc. has partnered with GTT for subsidised data plans that will allow youth to have uninterrupted online learning. SSYDR Inc. has, as its vision, “Inspired Youth transforming themselves, their communities, their nation” and has a mission, to “promote youth access to resources, opportunities and ongoing support for lifelong learning, leadership and livelihoods towards the reduction of violence, crime and poverty,” the release concluded.