As UNIDO & YEN boost youth employment President Koroma’s Private Sector Advisor, Oluniyi Robbin-Coker to speak at High Level Consultative Meeting on Youth Entrepreneurship
The Messeh Partnership Trust (MPT), a leading not-for-profit development foundation, announces that President Ernest Bai Koroma’s Private Sector Advisor, Mr. Oluniyi Robin-Coker (in photo) will speak at High Level Consultative Meeting on Youth Entrepreneurship, to be held in the Ministry of Social Welfare Gender and Children’s Affairs Conference Hall, New England Ville, on Wednesday, 20th, July 2011 at 10:30 am.
Mr. Robin-Coker will participate in a roundtable discussion and describe how youth can serve as ‘Agent of Change’ vis-à-vis a Youth based Private Sector. In addition to the interactive roundtable discussion sessions, there will be working groups’ sessions and networking where stakeholders can engage with experts in the field of youth employment and enterprise development for a meaningful dialogue and outcome.
The meeting is primarily targeted to engage young entrepreneurs, civil society organisations, the corporate sector, financial institutions, and other stakeholders including Children, Youth Leaders (women & disabled), Ministers, Parliamentarians, Mayors/Councillors, Company Directors, Business Leaders, Heads of NGOs, Donors, Lawyers, Academicians, Journalists, Community Leaders, Grassroots movements committed towards Youth enterprise and employment.
The meeting aims to provide space to inform and consult with key stakeholders on the ‘Made in Salone Cooperative’, a youth-led eco-friendly enterprise designed to promote locally made products, to include recycle and refill used ink/toner cartridges for printer, fax, and copier machines. The Cooperative is being created to contribute to the financing of youth beneficiaries to pursue this aim and, in particular, to support innovative approaches to youth entrepreneurship development by youth in Sierra Leone in order to create work for young people and strengthen the participation of youth in development cooperation.
The consultative meeting will serve as a platform to further build partnerships, exchange experiences on selection of beneficiaries and the formation of the Cooperative. The meeting will also examine youth vision and contribution, and present good practices of youth initiatives related to youth employment and other key issues.
It is important that Sierra Leone will build an innovative system that is geared towards investing in youth and supporting an entrepreneurial culture – a culture where young people are viewed as assets and are encouraged to harness their creative abilities for self-employment and wealth creation in general – a culture that is geared towards self-reliance and self actualisation in today’s and tomorrow’s young generation.
The Messeh Partnership Trust through the Made in Salone Cooperative thus is carving out new roles through an integrated approach to act as a catalyst to address youth unemployment. The approach is by building strategic collaborations, alliances, coalitions and partnerships with State and Non-state Actors and the youth community in Sierra Leone. By investing in youth for employment and enterprise development and for their overall empowerment is equivalent to investing in the future. It should therefore be a collective dream and a common goal which Sierra Leoneans must aspire to, share and realise together.
Under the patronage of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs through the Children’s Forum Network, the meeting will also provide a unique opportunity to raise the profile of child labour and the role of youth and the private sector in addressing the issue of child labour including promoting adherence to international norms to end child labour (child hawkers, child miners, domestic servants etc).
This project is being implemented by the Messeh Partnership Trust (MPT), and made possible with the support of the Youth-to-Youth Fund of the Youth Employment Network (YEN), with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).
The Messeh Partnership Trust acts as a trusted partner in creating opportunities and providing an excellent environment for like-minded institutions and individuals to meet, work together, share best practices, join forces to raise funds, to network, to give technical support and to plan and implement programmes, on building a prosperous and secure Sierra Leone for all.
For any further information or to participate in this meeting, please contact:
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