Initiatives To Create Jobs For Zongo Youth Launched

As part of efforts to empower young men and women from urban Zongo communities to make them economically productive, Yaasalam Opportunity Center has rolled out some initiatives that would create employment avenues to reduce poverty in these communities.

These ambitious and laudable initiatives include; Zongo 360, Zongo Business Incubator, Zongo Business Network and Yaasalam Publishers.

Yaasalam Opportunity Center is a collaborative venture between the chairman of Afro-Arab Group of Companies, Alhaji Salamu Amadu and the lead researcher at Past, Present and Future PPF Research and Peace Institute, Mr. Abdulsalam Mohammed Daaru, to develop the capacities of the youth in the Muslim populated areas as a measure to ensure that these youth play positive roles in the development of their communities and the country.

Alhaji Amadu and Mr. Mohammed have in the recent past attended separate international human centred events in Canada and the United States respectively, and this has necessitated that they roll out initiatives in their communities to share their knowledge and experiences to impact positively on the lives of the youth.

Alhaji Amadu first participated in the One Young World summit in the Canadian city of Ottawa in 2016, where together with youth from other parts of the world they met and interacted with political and economic leaders.

One Young World, a UK-based charity foundered by David Jones and Kate Robertson in 2009 is an annual summit that brings together the brightest young leaders from all over the world, to empower them towards creating positive change back in their countries.

“After each Summit, the delegates, who are then known as One Young World Ambassadors, work on their own initiatives or lend the power of the One Young World network to those initiatives already in existence” a statement on the website of the One Young World reads.

Mr. Mohammed on the other hand was the guest of the US State Department from August to December 2016, when he was invited for a professional fellowship dubbed Community Solution program that focuses on education and cultural affairs under the auspices of the International Research and Exchange Board, which empowers youth and cultivate leaders.

He worked with Global Ties Akron-Ohio, on leadership and international diplomacy, whiles sharing his knowledge and experiences on inter-religious dialogue, conflict resolution and the reorganization and development of Zongo communities.

With a renewed passion to help in the development of their communities the two young Ambassadors teamed up as a way of becoming more effective and putting together their newly acquired experiences from different programs to the benefit of Zongo suburbs.

Speaking in an interview, the duo explained that their mode of operation is to train the youth to take up leadership roles in their communities and to spread the knowledge they acquire from the trainings.

The training modules are designed to address societal needs and since the inception of the initiative over 50 youth have been admitted, trained and are working on different themes to achieve the vision of job creation and poverty eradication.

The capacity building and training programs, which are offered at no cost to the participants, are also opened to all manner of persons irrespective of educational background since the modules are tailor-made to suit each participant.

The success achieved so far has lent indication to a promising and bright future for Yaasalam Opportunity Center. Plans are far advanced for the initiatives to be scaled-up in other cities with sizeable Zongo communities.