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Business Reporters
Government has urged the micro finance institutions to engage the youths in not only giving them financial support but also providing skills training to reduce poverty and create employment opportunities for them through environmentally friendly practices of doing business.
Minister of Youth, Indigenisation and Empowerment Mr Francis Nhema ymade the call this week at the Green Microfinance Conference.
“There will be no green if the youths are not included. MFIs should be seen engaging the youths in not only through funding them but also investing in their entrepreneurial skills training. You (MFIs) must think locally and remember where you came from by training those with one or two Ordinary Level subjects and then include them in the microfinance businesses,” he said.
He also reminded the MFIs to consider the youths who do not have little academic qualifications by encouraging these funders to have youth policies that embrace the majority of these youths in order to assist them.
Minister Nhema said Government was looking at resuscitating the country’s struggling vocational centres in terms of equipping and accommodating the youths. He said that his ministry had sourced funding from organisations such as Old Mutual who pledged US$1 million for the country’s 47 vocational centres.
He also expressed dissatisfaction over the high rate of youths that have dropped out of school saying that the number was shockingly high. He said that according to latest statistics 400 000 youths have failed to access higher education and they do not have knowledge hence they struggle to survive as they cannot go to work.
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