President Obama Announces US$70 Million Youth Training and Employment Programme

President of the United States, Barack Obama, today (April 9) announced a US$70 million development programme to benefit youth in Latin America and the Caribbean.

President Obama announced the programme at a special Town Hall meeting with Caribbean youth leaders held at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.

The programme will be used to support education, training and employment.

“These investments will help young people in unemployed, impoverished and marginalised communities (and) give them a chance to gain the skills they need to compete and succeed in the 21st century,” President Obama said.

He noted that the opportunities available to young people today give them the freedom to be creative and enterprising.

“More than a hundred million people in Latin America and the Caribbean are between the ages of 15 and 24. Most of the region is under 35 and what gives me so much hope about your generation is that you’re more interested in the hard work of …building prosperity through entrepreneurship, not cronyism or corruption,” President Obama said.

Youth and Culture Minister, Lisa Hanna, who attended the forum, welcomed the programme, which she said, will benefit the country’s young people.

She told JIS News that the initiative by President Obama “shows that he is very passionate about youth and to build the future generation of power brokers across the world.”

Minister Hanna informed that the President had provided details of the programme at a bi-lateral meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister earlier in the day.

“He was very clear about doing things for young people and makings sure young people had access to building their own sustainability, jobs, entrepreneurship apprenticeship and seeing themselves as that catalyst for the next life systems going forward,” she noted.

She told JIS News that the initiative will aid the Government’s effort in building the entrepreneurship programme through the National Youth Service (NYS).

“This year, we are training 1,500 people in entrepreneurship …so we’re hoping that certainly, through the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth and Culture, that some of our young people, who go through that entrepreneurship programme will actually have an opportunity to (benefit),” she informed.