In its effort to reduce the youth unemployment in the country, the National Youth Council (NYC) kickoff 3 – 6 month internship program for the young people of the Gambia at an orientation ceremony at its head office in Kanifing South.
The initiative will expose young people to hands on the job experience for a period of three to six months and understand the basis of internship and how it will widen their knowledge and experience.
The first batch of interns consists of 20 young people from various youth organizations and individual young people across the country.
Funded by Peacebuilding Fund through United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the initiative is intended to expand to various organizational levels to network and share experience among them so as to prepare for the greater task ahead for full employment.
Omar Bah, Program Officer, Peace Security and Justice of the National Youth Council said the internship project of NYC is meant to expose young people to gain experience and help in addressing the youth unemployment problem in the Gambia.
“NYC will pay the allowance of all the 20 interns in all the selected youth organizations for a period of three months. This can be extended depending on the duration of the project,” he said.
Omar added that the initiative will serve as a one stop center for NYC to mold, recruit and build the capacity of young people on internship and prepare them for challenging jobs or carrier for effective and efficient service delivery.
Pa Malick Ceesay, Deputy Executive Director, National Youth Council challenged the interns to be committed and be focused on the task in hand at their various organizations.
He said internship is all about learning about the job and gaining experiences, while urging them to be discipline and respect the work they are assigned to do.
“As a council we will continue to collaborate with partners and build the capacity of young people and advocate for their involvement in the development of the country. We are committed to the development and empowerment of our young people, this is why we came with such initiative to create employment opportunities for them,” he said.
Ousman Fatty, Chairperson, National Youth Council said Gambian young people are talented all what they need is support and resources. “This initiative will help in creating opportunity for these young people to gain experience and be gainfully employed in the future,” he said.
He said internship is a way to full employment, so you most take it seriously. Do not also forget to upgrade yourselves and be more qualified.
“This country cannot be developed without the involvement of young people thus investment into youth development is vital. Our mission is to see this country develop and that cannot happen without you the young people,” he said.
He added: “We hate to see young people roaming the streets unemployed forcing him into drugs”.
