Victoria Falls youths launch digital skills database

YOUNG people in Victoria Falls marked the National Youth Day celebrations in style by launching a digital platform that will help create a database of all skilled and unskilled youth for them to be able to access opportunities.

The Robert Mugabe National Youth Day main celebrations were held at Mushagashe Vocational Training Centre in Masvingo on Wednesday last week where President Mnangagwa delivered the keynote address.

Thousands of youths from the country’s 10 provinces attended the event under the theme: “Positioning Youth Empowerment and Development Towards Achieving Vision 2030.”

Celebrated every February 21, the national holiday falls on the late former President Robert Mugabe’s birthday and seeks to honour his legacy and encourage youths to adopt sound leadership values by emulating the ethos espoused by founding national leaders.

In Victoria Falls, a group of 31 youths used the day to launch Amathuba Skills Bank, a platform they initiated under Amathuba Creators, a company that has been registered to give events and entertainment, housing and property development and commercial communication services to youth between the ages of 15 and 40 years in Victoria Falls.

Amathuba Creators is the brainchild of a local youth, Mr Glen Dumolwayo Ncube, from Mkhosana suburb who visited the only public library in the city and after failing to get what he wanted because of a lack of internet services as the library only focuses on lending out old reading books, saw the need to come up with a platform that can use artificial intelligence to address modern society needs.

Mr Ncube invited young people in Victoria Falls but only 31 from Mkhosana showed interest and they registered Amathuba Creators, which gave birth to Amathuba Skills Bank which was launched last Wednesday.

They invited captains of industry and speakers were Mr Arnold Musonza, Mrs Barbara Murasiranwa-Hughes, Mr Thulani Nkala, Mr Elvis Zinyemba, Mr Brian Moyo and others.

The motivation behind Amathuba Creators is to create opportunities and put them into existence.

In an interview after the launch, Amathuba chair Mr Funny Nyoni said they desired to work with the Government to identify opportunities for young people, create job opportunities for them and ensure they live in a safe space away from the life of drug and substance abuse and crime.

“This is a digital platform and web-based database, which embodies the spirit of innovation in which we are saying it is a testimony of resilience of young people of Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe in general,” he said.

“Amathuba Skills Bank seeks to leverage the various skill sets of young people in Victoria Falls where they face the challenge of being sidelined and not easily identifiable to suitable employers.”

Mr Nyoni said research has shown that some local youth have skills but are sidelined. The database will help close the gap and ensure people get job opportunities.

Young people will be expected to register with the organisation, which will capture their personal details, professional qualifications and experience that will then be used to respond to opportunities from companies.

“We engaged companies and presented the product and told them we want to serve the community and reduce the hassle of recruitment processes and costs,” he said.

“We want to bring convenience hence we have strategic partnership agreements with companies who will consider youths.”

Subscribers will pay a nominal monthly subscription to remain in the database and the money from subscriptions will be pooled into a youth rotational fund to empower young people.

Amathuba Skills Bank team leader Ms Nozipho Ndlovu said the digital platform will be visible to job seekers and employers. “We want to help job seekers find new roles and companies to get skilled people. It has the job seekers, internship gateway, volunteers pass and networking segments where prospective employers and employees can access the portal,” she said.

“Our job is to match what the employers want and what workers are looking for. Employers have indicated that the average Victoria Falls youth lacks requisite skills hence we want to create a database of human resources in the youth category,” she said.