This morning I delivered the key-note address at the graduation ceremony of the Standing4Youth Entrepreneurship Program with HE David Belgrove of UK and Hon Minister of MOTIE Seedy Keita in attendance.The 10 week £800,000 (D56.9 million) entrepreneurship coaching program pilot by IOM which is funded by the UK Government will provide £1755 (D125,000) to over 364 youth entrepreneurs and youth with entrepreneurship aspirations in KM, Basse and Jarra. On behalf of the people of KM and young people of the Gambia I would like to express our gratitude to His Excellency David Belgrove and the Government of the United Kingdom through the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.I would like to thank the International Organization for Migration and the Chief of Mission Fumiko Nagano.
We are grateful for your continued partnership and for seeing value in youth-centred initiatives. Together, your support has provided young entrepreneurs with a chance to achieve their professional goals.We thank you for championing a new form of aid. Not the aid of handouts but of grass roots mobilization and harnessing the capacity of young people and realizing that economic self sufficiency cannot be created by a top down approach but by empowering the youth so that they may be agents of change and development.