YADA Empowers Over 100 Blantyre City South Youths with Economic Transformation Skills
YADA is a Blantyre-based organization that promotes the interests of young people by providing them with entrepreneurship skills.
Blantyre, Malawi-Over 100 young people from Blantyre City South are set to receive economic transformation skills in the townships of Zingwangwa, Chilobwe, and Chimwankhunda, thanks to training skills from Youth Action in Development Activities (YADA), writes Bridget Banda.
YADA is a Blantyre-based organization that promotes the interests of young people by providing them with entrepreneurship skills.
It has embarked on a pilot program that aims to empower the youth with vocational skills and startups for economic transformation.
Funding for some of YADA's projects comes from the government's Constituency Development Fund (CDF). So far, 23 youths have acquired loans from the organization to start small-scale businesses.
One of the beneficiaries of the project, code-named Skills for Youth Development and Economic Empowerment, is Matalia Katopola. She says economic empowerment is key to self-reliance among the youth in the country.
Katopola is among the 23 youths who have acquired loans from YADA with financial support from the area's CDF. She has invested the loan in a business that has already started making profits for her, and she is now able to send her children to school.
Director of YADA Ian Wisiki says the initiative is aimed at providing economic activities to youths in the constituency, as this is a tool to end political violence among youths.
He also says the initiative has started to bear fruits, as some of the youths are able to support their relatives and parents with the profit they are getting through the program.
Wisiki further says the project intends to make more youths financially stable, a development that will transform them into productive citizens in their society.
Member of Parliament for Blantyre City South constituency Noel Lipipa says it is the responsibility of every political leader to utilize CDF to directly benefit local communities.
"I believe political leaders must use these resources like in my tenure I have strived to empower youths by among other things providing loans there by enabling them to pursue their dreams and contribute to the country’s development," Lipipa said.
He also emphasized the need to support unemployed constituents to make a living through entrepreneurship once they use the funds as a startup capital.
Youth rights activist Dalitso Magelegele said young people make up more than 50% of the population of Malawi and are thus crucial to the development of Malawi and the achievement of the Malawi 2063 agenda.
Magelegele also said young people are a productive group, and whatever is invested in them produces results. When these young people do businesses with the loans acquired, it will economically empower them and their communities and eventually Malawi in general.
He further advised all youths who have been granted loans to use the loans for the intended purposes of investing and uplifting their lives, rather than misusing the funds with careless social behaviors.
They should also plan and prepare to give back the loans to the lending institutions so that the resources also benefit other qualifying young people, he said.
"The youth have the potential to spur the social economic situation of their communities and Malawi if given necessary tools such as loans for business investment," Magelegele said.
"This is commendable and timely, especially now that many young people are suffering from depression due to economic challenges."
Bravo YADA