2015-09-18Staff Report 2 Tsumeb A delegation from Tsumeb Town Council, including CEO Archie Benjamin, will depart for Sweden shortly to seek solutions to the town’s high unemployment rate. The delegation will include some council members and will hold talks with municipal officials from Falun on how to address the high unemployment rate among young people at the copper-mining town of Tsumeb. Spokesperson of Tsumeb Town Council Stella Imalwa said on Wednesday the two towns twinned as development partners in 2008. She said they have also been running various developmental and collaborative programmes between the two towns over the years. Imalwa said their trip this year will focus on labour integration initiatives, in which they will be requesting funding and assistance to start a programme through which unemployed youth will get skills training, distance education opportunities and entrepreneurial training. “We’ve noted that while many youth have been employed in recent years, some still struggle to get employment, either because they don’t have the training or the capacity. Through this programme we will be looking at ways to use the expertise of the Swedish to run programmes similar to their labour integration units in Falun,” Imalwa further explained. She says the twin municipalities have in the past run joint programmes, such as the sustainable waste management project that ends this year, whereby Swedish university students conducted research and data collection in Tsumeb to come up with solutions on how best to deal with the waste management systems in place at the town. “That programme has now ended and we’re embarking on a new mission to get the green light for this programme. Once it is granted we will run the programme for two years whereby Namibian youth from different backgrounds will be identified to work with youth in Sweden,” she stated. The delegation is expected to leave on September 27 and return on October 4. 2015-09-18Staff Report 2
