Governor Puye Tells Youth: Seek Funding And You Will be Assisted

Governor Puye said the youth should  to take up entrepreneurship (Photo Credit MSJoof/TNBES/July2016)

“Seek for funding at the regional and national levels and you will be assisted,” the Governor of Lower River Region (LRR), Salifu Puye told Gambian youths last week.  

He said the youth should venture into start-up businesses and be persistent in whatever they are doing, when he presided over the closing of the GYIN Gambia ELIT 2016 summer camp on July 31 at Jenoi village in LRR.

“Let us stay there for a while, learn some theories, learn from our mistakes and then correct it for the future. Try to build partnership among yourselves like other countries are doing and you build yourselves into a vibrant private sector-led business in this country,” he said

He said at regional level there are small grants from the FASDEP, CILIP, and Nema projects that the youths can benefit from. “Now that you have been trained, start up something and be persistent,” he said.

He hailed GYIN for organizing “such an important” meeting for youths drawn from all regions of The Gambia, and advices the participants to take up their rightful places in the private sector of The Gambia where non-Gambians seems to be more interested to work in than Gambians.

He said the youths should work for their development and the advancement of their communities and the country.

Mamadou Edrisa Njie, GYIN Gambia National Coordinator, said after every programme GYIN deploys a monitoring and evaluation team for a period of three to six months to evaluate the participants on what they have learned and whether they are putting it into practice.

He said GYIN is very thankful that most of the participants trained in the CORY Project have demonstrated their knowledge and skills to the fullest and “we want you to continue working hard.”

Jainaba Manjang, Head of Programmes at GYIN and Vice Chairperson of ELIT 2016, said the camp was meant to educate the participants in the special areas of Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Information Technology (ELIT) that “we think will be beneficial to them.”

“My advice is that make best use of the things that you have learned and when you go back to your regions try to implement them in your ventures,” she said.

Sheikh Omar Fye, Head of Gender Department at MDI, said: “What we have experienced here is meant for us to live exemplary lives. If we reflect back on what Edrisa mentioned about the governor’s willingness to help young people, I think that a lone tells us that as a leader you should lead by example.”

Fye told the participants to understand that they have to open-up for GYIN to be aware of what they are doing – that is very important. “Don’t detach yourselves from GYIN, you have to keep in touch with GYIN to understand what is going on and take your business plans seriously,” he said.

Ebrima Bah, Chairperson of GYIN ELIT 2016, said the camp has lived up to expectation. He hailed Mr. Puye for continuously supporting GYIN and youth activities in his region.

• A version of this story first appeared on The Point newspaper on August 16, 2016

Written by Modou S. Joof

Follow on Google+

Follow on Twitter: @thenorthbankeve

Follow on Facebook: The North Bank Evening Standard