Lorato Khobetsi-Slinger
To bridge the skills development gap in Gibeon, the village council has been hosting free training to empower and equip the youth with various skills to address the current high unemployment rate.
According to the acting CEO of the village council, Monica Silas, the council has been for the past year playing its part in ensuring youth are getting equipped with various skills.
“Last year, we invited people to give training to the youth in Gibeon. They were trained in office administration and tourism. The council do bring their part and it’s for free. We do our part in training the youth as far as we can,” said Silas.
Gibeon is one of the places in the Hardap region where over 90% of the youth are unemployed. Therefore, contractors awarded tenders in the village are required to employ 75% of the locals.
“When it comes to capital projects, it is a requirement that any contractor, who does projects here, employ 75% of the youth or the labourers should be from Gibeon. And we do ensure that is what is really happening because it is a mandatory requirement,” added Silas.
Despite, the efforts made by the village council, the youth claim they are being side-lined and are over looked when there are vacancies or tenders available.
“We are jobless in Gibeon. Tenders are being advertised but the people who are awarded these tenders bring their own people from outside. There are a lot of unemployed youth; we have experienced people. We are looking for jobs – we want to work,” said a frustrated Jenny Fleermuys.
Another concerned youth Kathleen Frederik said “We hear about vacancies but the people are just being rotated in one office, but we are not being hired. When we complain, we are being told we are lazy and that we don’t want to work”.
However, Silas refuted those claims saying “Sometimes when contractors are appointed, even if we tell them to employee our youth, they complain our youth are unskilled and they don’t know how to do the work. But we do encourage them to train them regardless of the work they are doing. The contractors really do employ the youth but later when we do inspections, we will find out that those locals employed have left their jobs”.