200 young Guyanese find employment after completing USAID programme

More than 200 high risk youths have found employment over the four-year life of a USAID-sponsored programme which saw over 400 youths equipped with life and employment skills.

The Community, Family and Youth Resilience (CFYR) programme, which began in July 2016 and ran until Monday last, targeted youths between the ages 16 to 29 from Regions Four and Six.

In Guyana, the NGO Creative Association International received funding to implement the CFYR project which was also executed in several other Caribbean countries.

In addition to the employment and life skills project, the NGO instituted an after-school programme for young children. Those projects were run in communities deemed high risk, namely Sophia, East and West Ruimveldt, Lodge, and Corriverton.

While the numbers varied from community to community, Corriverton, Region Six boasted 106 participants, ages 7-9, 10-16, and 17-29 years.

Under the guidance of Project Facilitator, Ms. Annette Jaundoo, Corriverton’s NGO, FACT (Family Awareness Consciousness Togetherness), was able to run its projects ensuring the most vulnerable youths were given the opportunity.

“We ensured that we took in those who really needed the programme, who needed the extra lesson, whose families could not afford it, only the most vulnerable,” Ms. Jaundoo told DPI in an invited comment.

She said the younger groups focused on after-school lessons, while the teens to adult group was thought life and employment skills. The youngsters were the siblings of the target participants who would otherwise have been left unattended while their parents were at work.

US Ambassador to Guyana, Her Excellency Sarah-Ann Lynch, who spoke during last week’s online closeout session, noted that throughout all the interactions, she was struck by the aspirational visions the young men and women have for themselves.

“It has been an inspiring experience,” Ambassador Lynch said.

The US envoy also praised CFYR’s family initiative, calling it the centrepiece of the programme.

“Through the Family Matters initiative 160 at-risk youth and their families in Guyana benefitted from family counselling, essentially, better-performing families will mean better-performing youth,” she said.

CFYR projects are aimed at reducing violence and increasing opportunities for young people by focusing on family building and networking in communities and with service providers and Government agencies.

Communities in St. Lucia and St. Kitts and Nevis were also beneficiaries of the programme.

By Felecia Valenzuela