The President of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) Charles Coffee says no country can develop to the fullest when the youth population of said nation is not empowered with knowledge and skills.
The PUL President made the statement Wednesday at the end of a one-day media sanitization seminar on the Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Program (YEEP) organized by the Ministry of Youth and Sports in collaboration with the African Development Bank.
Mr. Coffee noted that the unemployment rate of Liberia like other West African Countries is very high and as such it has the propensity to deny youths of potential growth and development.
“For any other to develop to the fullest and meet future challenges and to compete with other countries globally, that country must empower the young people who are considered the future leaders,” he said.
He continued: “It is not just to give them education, but employment opportunity, those who have the capacity to contribute to the growth and development of such country”.
Mr. Coffee also noted that government agencies and Ministries, as well as local and international organizations works, are not been realized by the targeted beneficiaries because they overlook the strength of the media in propagating their information.
“The delays by some institutions to fully involve the media in the implementation of projects and programs normally are s recipe for failure of those projects and programs. All we expect of Youth and Sports Ministry and other institutions is to also include members of the media or their institutions,” he said.
He also called for the involvement of media institutions and media practitioners.
Mr. Coffee hailed the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the World Bank for the initiative taken to empower young people with needed skills.
Giving an overview of the project, Deputy Minister for Youth Development, Isaac Doe, said the Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Project is for the Ministry to collaborate with three institutions of learning for its implementation.
He named the institutions as the University of Liberia (UL) which will implement the job readiness component, the Nimba Community College (NCC) that will implement the entrepreneurship Development while the Booker Washington Institute (BWI) will implement Technical Skills Development.
“Under skills development for employment, for example, BWI, as a TVET institute, will re-design course content and training modalities of selected disciplines to impart new skills to the youth as required by the market. This will involve skills needs assessment to validate three priority skills; review and re-design course content and training modalities of the three selected disciplines; design and deliver a training of trainers for 15 TVET instructors,” he said.
The cost of the project is put at US$ 2.4m
