Plans are in the making for the enactment of a National Youth Policy agenda.
Minister for Youth Development and Sports Kenson Casimir explained that the National Youth Policy aims to engender the development of young people over the next couple years, with legislation to guide and chart that course.
Casimir noted that government is cognizant of the abundance of talent and skills among the island’s young people, and so, wants to provide an enabling environment to nurture the potential of the youth.
“It’s a policy document that we’ve been working on for a long time and we believe that young people have a major role to play in the development of this country,” he declared, at a media briefing, Monday.
“And so, with that policy it’s going to chart the way forward and identify exactly how we are going to do it, how society is going to come onboard and how are we going to shape the future of our next generation,” the minister added.
Within the wider ambit of this youth policy, Casimir referred to prospects in the newly inaugurated Semi-Pro Football League [SPFL] to enable young persons to acquire life-long learning skills.
He disclosed that the Taiwanese government has provided a sum of $200, 000 towards skills development as an important component of the project.
Citing government’s involvement in the Semi-Pro Football League [SPFL], Casimir assured reporters that the authorities will not get involved in the administrative aspect of the game. He said after several years of discussion there was a need for the development and implementation of the SPFL, and government felt it was imperative to provide a ‘start-up’ for the venture.
“We needed to get a start, we could not have continued with just staying on the sideline and have people saying that football is not developing,” the minister contended. He said there were also complaints about young people training for multiple hours, but not getting compensated for their efforts.
Riding off the SPFL’s tagline: Leveraging football to transform lives, Casimir said, “This is what we have to continue, so with this programme we are going to have a parenting workshop for these young men.
“We know that a lot of the complaints are about fathers in the household and their role. And so, with this programme, we are going to be bringing all the young men into a room to have discussions and to train them on what it means to be a father in the modern world.”
He said the programme will also involve signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Education, National Skills Development Centre (NSDC) and the Taiwanese government to provide over $200,000 in finances for skills development.
The minister explained that the programme will provide training for different categories of workers, such as plumbers, carpenters, bartenders, massage therapists and there are over 15 items identified as training options for those young men.
He continued, “The development thrust is not just about paying people to go kick a ball, but to actually leverage football to transform their lives.”
Casimir said that money management is another criterion that will be included in the programme, since the young men may become prone to spending away their hard-earned cash frivolously.
“We want to speak to them about how they invest, how do you save and how do you actually use your money to sustain your livelihood,” he stated.
With the stakes high and the scope for generating economic returns through the SPFL, the minister is hopeful that corporate sponsors will eventually come onboard to be part of this football development on the islsnd.
We will be asking people to send proposals to sponsor, because the amount of attention and the returns on investment these companies can have would definitely trigger them to come, and to gravitate towards the league, said Casimir.