Youth empowerment is a prime need for the development of Bangladesh

Md. Abdullah Al Mamun

YES CENTER Blogger Group

Abdullah Al Mamun: Youth are the backbone of any country because the development of a country mostly depends on the integrated development of youth. Development in Bangladesh also depends on proper utilization of youth because they constitute about one-third of the total population. But the youth are suffering from various socio-economic problems, such as unemployment, underemployment, illiteracy, lack of technical education and training and the financial crisis for self-employment which causes mass poverty.

The progress of economic and social status depends on the active participation of an educated, trained and skilled youth force in the development process, but the youth do not get the opportunity to acquire such qualities. Consequently, they are not able to participate in the decision making process of development work as well as in their self-employment. Besides the technology-based education system, technology based institutions and vocational training are not developed adequately. So the youth do not have much opportunity to get technology-based professional education and training that can help them to get jobs, create self-employment, and develop their leadership qualities as well.

As a result of this situation youth are not only detached from the mainstream of the development process but also some of them get involved in various anti-social activities. So for saving the youth from the ruin and to support the development process they must be included in the mainstream of development activities. And the development of any country largely depends upon the participation and commitment of all the youth concerned with development activities.

Keeping this view, the Government of Bangladesh has adopted a youth policy and the government organizations and NGOs are implementing different types of activities with the aim to empower the youth economically as well as socially.

The YES CENTER Cox’s Bazar is one of the opportunities for the youth in Cox’s Bazar to boost their confidence, their technical knowledge, their skills and management capacity for getting proper jobs after accomplishing their studies. In order to provide viable self-employment opportunities particularly to the rural youth, the YES CENTER, financed by ESPRIT and supported by the YOU Foundation-Education for Children in Need (Germany) provides training to the youth and also helps to make a linkage with employers.

Using modern educational techniques enhancing the quality of education, the YES CENTER Cox’s Bazar, run by YPSA and the YES SATELLITE CENTER Dhaka, run by HOPE’87-Bangladesh,  offer the youth a tailor-made demand-driven program which provides guidance, counseling, education, and training to the youth to empower them and to give them the chance to develop into healthy citizens, who can carry forward the process of development of Bangladesh.