At a press briefing held at the Independence Stadium, Thursday, he said: “On Monday 4t August 2014 six Gambian youth left Banjul International Airport for Ziniare Vocational Training Centre in Burkina Faso to attend a thirty-day skills training me on auto-mechanic, refrigeration and air conditioning. This is one of the many Ecowas programmes that seek to enhance the capacities of young people in West Africa. The programme seeks to reduce youth unemployment within the sub-region through the acquisition of necessary skills for enterprise development. This is the fifth training since 2007 and third edition of the Burkina Faso capacity building programme organised by Ecowas.”
Mr Badjie said the team joined 59 youth selected by the NYSS and NYC under the coordination of the ministries of Youth and Sports and Trade, Employment and Regional Integration to attend the skills acquisition training programme. The areas of training include agriculture at the Songhai Centre in Benin, electricity at the Souforoulaye Skills Centre in Mali as well as auto-mechanic and air-conditioning at Ziniare Vocational Training Centre in Burkina Faso.
Mr Badjie said the graduates of the training have developed a sub-regional civil society organisation of its alumni called the Network of Ecowas Trainees on Youth Entrepreneurship (NETYE). Established in 2009, the organisation has a membership of 65 out of which 43 are male and 23 female across many fields of technical expertise.
Lamin Kebba Marong, the head of the team on the training, said they were taken to different areas related to the training. “We tried our best to represent The Gambia well and a trophy was given to one of our female members for being the best student in the auto-mechanic training category. We are very thankful for the opportunity to learn these skills and will share them with our fellow youths who do not have the opportunity to,” he said.
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