Sierra Leone’s leading telecoms company, Orange Sierra Leone (OSL) has been commended by Minister of State, Office of the Vice President, Manti Tarawallie for sponsoring a four-day job fair held by the Government of Sierra Leone.
The National Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Fair (NYEEF) aims at creating employment and growth opportunities for the development of future ready youth. The all-important conference is a follow up to a presidential announcement of creating 500, 000 (five hundred thousand) jobs for the young men and women of Sierra Leone.
The youth who are ready to take one-step ahead in building career welcome the conference in which they hope part of their job problems would be solved. If it goes as planned, the move will cut down joblessness and empower the youth to contribute to national development.
OSL itself has a flashy booth ready to take part in an event that seeks to empower the youth of Sierra Leone. Orange flags dress the conference and in the next four days starting yesterday, hundreds of job seekers would interact with employers for skills identification.
Other institutions in the public and private sectors also took part in the conference. The event is in line with OSL’s Social Venture Prize which builds young entrepreneurs, support start-ups as well as small and medium enterprises.
The Minister made the commendation while addressing the youth and other stakeholders at the ceremony. The conference, according to the minister, adds to the employability and competence of the youth as well as young entrepreneurs.
“We also connect Job seekers and employers,” the minister said adding that in this era of globalisation, the youth should not be wasted.
She called on Sierra Leoneans particularly employers to render more support to the youth saying “the creation of sustainable jobs is everybody’s business.”
The initiative is a job-creation drive for the youth, thanks to the vision of the Vice President, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh with the maiden edition starting last year. Owing to the opportunities it presents, NYEEF will be held every year supported by the ministries of Youth Affairs, Technical and Higher Education, Labour and social security as well as Trade.
It is a life changing event, according to the minister and the building blocks are being laid.
Held at Bintumani Hotel in Freetown, NYEEF brings together employers and job seekers as well as potential entrepreneurs for mutual benefits and relationship.
Through such interaction, employers could identify good talents to bring to their institutions and vice versa.
Personalities from different walks of life, government ministers, heads of agencies in the private and public sectors as well as the Chief Executive Officer, OSL, Sekou Amadu Bah.
In his key note address, Vice President declared the start of the conference yesterday and encouraged the youth to identify jobs for which they were most suited.
The conference, he went on, was a job creation strategy and a big time opportunity for the youth adding that the second edition was informed by successes recorded in the past. “Last year, we link 500 youth to 40 organisations and the result encouraged us to hold another conference,” Vice President recounted.
He also touched on government’s past free education project which, he said, attracted 22 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
The huge investment in the free education attracted huge attendance over the years.
It continued even when the free education project was declared over as 337, 000 candidates passed WASCCE (West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and they were qualified to enter tertiary institutions.
They are sure to come out in few years to add to the rolling statistics of jobless youth thus making the conference highly critical in the reduction of joblessness in Sierra Leone.
To absorb this number, the Vice President said, government had to position themselves by moving from utility to productive energy to power factories for job creation.
Access to finance is also being improved to boost youth who wanted to embark on entrepreneurship and business.
Job creation ranks second in the government’s ‘Big Five Game Changers’ and that the conference builds bridge between skills and opportunities.
Although a platform for jobs has been created in the form of NYEEF, Vice President also urged the youth to foster a culture of “social intelligence” which is about building strong relationships with the outside world and be respectful.
“One can have a first-class degree but difficult to access jobs if he has poor relationship with the people,” the Vice President asserted.
Minister of Youth Affairs, Mohamed Orman Bangura urged the youth to seek opportunities and avoid over-reliance on government for jobs.
Looking back at his early life, Bangura informed the youth that he started his career path as an intern and rose through the stages.
“I got a job at the London Mining Company before I was appointed Minister of Youth,” he said while reiterating his call to the young men and women to seize the opportunities of the moment.
NYEEF is a key to the future as it holds potentials for the youth in Sierra Leone. The minister made reference to a programme in which Sierra Leoneans now undergo science and commerce courses and work for three years in the United States.
It is not a choice but strategic objectives for the creation of opportunities.
Recent, global statistics has showed that 73, 000, 000 (seventy-three million) people are jobless and Sierra Leone takes a fair share of that number, and joblessness threatens the socio-economic and political stability of countries all over the world including Sierra Leone.