Focus on unemployment, youth

UNEMPLOYMENT and youth-related social problems would be a thing of the past after the establishment of four Regional Incubation Centres in the country this year to train job-ready youths, National Youth Development Authority director general Reuben Akia says.
Akia told The National recently in Port Moresby when he launched the agency’s annual operational plan for 2019 together with five other agencies under the Department of Community Development, Youth and Religion.
He said the Regional Incubation Centres would be adopted from India, which is a better model.
“The incubation centre trains youths to create jobs and not to look for job as it is with other training institutions,” he said.
“After a youth graduates from an incubation centre, he or she starts on the job immediately by creating his or her own job.”
Akia said that youths can do greater things in life if we create quality and productive opportunities for them now, adding that a lot of youth are heading to waste who are creating all sorts of social problems in the communities.
“We need to recognise them in a positive way, and not allow them to go to waste, where they seek their own recognition through negative means.
“As you look around Port Moresby, you will see that every new structure that goes up is quickly tainted with graffiti, it is the youth who do all this to show us that they need recognition.”
“So if we are to obliterate this negative culture of theirs, introducing better and life changing mechanisms is the way forward for them, he said.
According to Akia, the Regional Incubation Centre for Southern region is already underway outside Port Moresby, and the other three regions would have theirs soon this year, which are very positively supported by National Planning and Monitoring Minister Richard Maru and Community Development and Religion Minister Soroi Eoe.