Bank Earmarks Sh120 Million for Youths' Empowerment

BARCLAYS Bank Tanzania has partnered with a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Nkwamira Sustainable Life Trust, to support out-of-school youths, where the bank is to dish out 120m/- to empower young people, including girls who failed to complete their education due to pregnancy.

Addressing journalists, the bank's Communication and Citizenship Manager, Ms Tunu Kavishe said the money handed over to Nkwamira Sustainable Life Trust, would address issues of unemployment to out-of-school youths aged between 15 and 35 years.

"Nkwamira's out-of-school youth empowerment programme aims at bringing youths in the regions of Dar es Salaam and Morogoro together and empower them in entrepreneurship skills so they can employ themselves in an effort to address the unemployment issue," she explained.

The project will enroll 100 participants from both regions, out of which 40 will be from Morogoro and 60 from Dare s Salaam, where they will sit through a series of training to empower them with different skills to start business ventures.

For her part, Nkwamira Executive Director, Ms Noreen Mazalla, said Barclays' support would go a long way to assisting youths in the country through empowering and assisting them to develop different business ideas. "The support will go a long way to help out-of-school youths in the two regions.

At the end of the programme we expect the empowered youths to develop various competitive business ideas, enhance accounting and financial management skills and booking keeping," she explained.

Ms Mazalla said girls who got pregnant and were forced to discontinue schooling would be among those who will receive the opportunity for entrepreneurship training. She said the youths, once trained and running their own business ventures, would be monitored and assisted continuously by the NGO.

"We are about changing lives. So we will ensure that what we have given them in terms of training and assistance to start own business ventures actually changes their lives for the better," she said.

Once the programme is up and running in the two regions and depending on its success, Barclays Bank Tanzania, together with the NGO, plan to roll out the programme to other out-of-school youths across the country. Barclays, through its community investment programmes, focuses on out-of-school youths and strategies around three pillars of financial, entrepreneurship and life skills