By : ALKALI CHAM
The youthful population of this country constitutes about 60% of The Gambia’s population, which makes the position of the youth in the country to be very important to the development of the nation. This means that their issues should be emphatically outlined in the national policies.
It’s very obvious that due to lack of employment opportunities in the country, some of the youths, over the years, are venturing into travelling to Europe in search of greener pasture and better paid job while few travel to educate themselves as the opportunities is very minimal in the country.
Many Lives have been lost recently in their quest to reach the soil of the western world. The tragic loss of life should send signal to the government, private sector, and other partners in development to put more focus on how to create more employment opportunities for the youths.
This should be done with view of creating more jobs and as well keep the employed youths in the country to stay with better standard of earning/payment, standard living, and good working condition. This can help to prevent them from venturing into this travelling of 50-50 called ‘backway.’ The country has mourned enough!
The Gambia should by now realise the presence of different specialist vocational training centres with the view to train young people in different employable skills, especially the less privilege among. This will help them start up their own micro business which will bring income to them that their families can also benefit in a greater extent.
The young people need to be considered significantly in all spheres of development process or else the country will be retarded. Inadequate participation of young people in employment opportunities would at a greater extent cripple the development process of the nation.
In The Gambia most of the families rely on the young people to feed them and this being the issue there should always be opportunities created for them to be engaged in the economic activities. This could be created by either private sector or central government equally it can be foreign investors that have the interest of the country at heart.
Youths that are not engage meaningfully always participate in activities that are ill to the society and opposite to the needs and liking of the society. Also they such youths have potential to equally promote criminal activities in the society in which they live. In altogether these activities can greatly undermine the development process of the nation.
The Gambia like any other country cannot be fully developed without its youth being engage in positive economic activities. Therefore, we all need to play a very positive role in ensuring that this is achieved.
The government of The Gambia with other development partners should continue to engage each other to discuss on issues which are significant to the needs and wants of the youth in the country. Their participation in nation building is highly needed and cannot be over emphasized.