By PNA
GENERAL SANTOS CITY — Non-profit education advocacy group, Philippine Business for Education (PBED), aims to enlist some 850 out-of-school youths here for the rollout next year of its innovative workforce development project dubbed YouthWorks PH.
Pierre Pecson, YouthWorks PH partnership manager, said preparations are underway for the implementation of the project in partnership with the local government, academe and the private sector.
He said the initiative, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), mainly intends to provide life skills and technical training to unemployed youths.
“Our goal is to capacitate and train our youths on various skills aligned with the needs of the local economy to assist them in getting stable employment opportunities,” he said in an interview with reporters on Tuesday.
Pecson and other YouthWorks PH representatives were in the city to formally introduce the initiative to local stakeholders and start preparations for its rollout.
Launched by PBED and USAID in June, YouthWorks PH is a PHP1.7-billion project that “aims to make education and training more responsive to the needs of the economy by working with the government, industry, and academe to provide opportunities to youths not in education, employment or training.”
The five-year project has selected the city as among its seven priority areas, along with the Greater Manila area and the cities of Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro.
Pecson said unemployed and out-of-school youths aged 18 to 24 years old may take part in the work-based training program and classroom-based instruction through its partner schools.
He said the prospective beneficiaries “must not be in education, employment or training.”
“Meaning they should not be taking formal education, not employed or into any business venture and not undergoing technical-vocational training,” he said.
Pecson said interested youths may undertake programs under six identified growth sectors — agriculture, banking and finance, construction, energy, hospitality and tourism, and manufacturing.
“What we want here is that the beneficiaries will get to choose the jobs that they want,” he said.
As part of their visit here, he said they are working on establishing partnerships with local companies that could provide work-based training to prospective beneficiaries.
Once these are laid out, Pecson said their group will return early next year for a career caravan and the launch of the initiative.
“The caravan would be similar to a job fair. But instead of offering jobs, it will feature training opportunities for our youths,” he added.
