BUJUMBURA October 20th (ABP) – The Director General of Technical Education, Vocational Training and Trades, Mr. Sylvestre Niyonzima, opened a project advocacy workshop on Thursday, October 18, 2023. ”Socio-economic integration of young people for peace and development”.
That workshop was organized by three international organizations namely Concern Worldwide, AVSI and Kiyo, in collaboration with three national organizations FVS-Child-Friendly, Great Lakes Inkingi Development and Youth Twinning for the Good of Children and Youth (JJB).
According to Niyonzima, that workshop aimed to raise awareness among various actors, both public and private, on the importance of socio-economic integration of young people for peace and development.
In the youth empowerment policy, to fight poverty, he stressed that the government of Burundi is aware that change must go through the professionalization of teaching.
In addition, he added, trades education and technical and professional training must allow Burundian youth to participate in their socio-economic self-development on the one hand, and their awareness, somewhere else. It is for that reason that the government built and continued to equip training centers for young people for different professions, he explained.
The general director of technical education, vocational training and trades took that opportunity to challenge young beneficiaries of starter kits to use them correctly, with a view to self-development. He also invited the partners of that project to continue to support those young people in their processes of financial empowerment and job creation.
The representative of the European Union (EU) in that activity, Côme Nijimbere, specified that the EU has financed that project from December 2020 to December 2023, with the aim of strengthening the socio-economic integration of young people and promoting of social cohesion in urban and peri-urban areas. According to him, that project also focuses on three axes, namely training and skills strengthening, socio-economic integration through support in income-generating activities and strengthening social cohesion through animation and peacebuilding.
Through that project, he stressed that those three axes are a reality because 1,542 young beneficiaries were trained in income-generating activities and 58 peacebuilding and animation clubs were set up.
Following that program, Mr. Nijimbere also announced that the EU is planning another program to support the training and socio-economic integration of young people, with the aim of strengthening the quality vocational training and scaling up the integration of young people into the employment sector. That program will support young Burundians in job creation to prepare for a better future, he explained.
He also called on all the young people who followed that training to share the experience acquired with other young people in their community, with a view to fighting poverty.
For his part, the legal representative of Concern worldwide, Mr. Dermott Hegarty, specified that the results of the analyzes and reports of that project, during the two years of activities, were positive for the beneficiaries. He thanked the six national and international organizations which financed the said project and congratulated the young beneficiaries who showed the courage to participate in that project. He called on them to continue doing those jobs with a view to creating a better future.
One of the young people who followed that training, Didier Mugisha, testified that after four months of training, they came together to form an association “Savonnerie Shirukubute” which manufactures soaps “located in Kamenge, Ntahangwa commune. Thanks to his job, they opened a bank account to save.