INAUGURAL YOUTH FESTIVAL PLANNED FOR DECEMBER
Youth At Work logo. Photo credit: Facebook.
An inaugural Youth Festival is being planned for December this year.
The Festival is part of the SPC-led Youth at Work program and follows a number of successful Youth Markets in Honiara.
Programs Manager of the Youth at Work, Sandra Bartlett told SIBC News the Youth Festival will run for a week in December.
“As part of that we’ll still feature the same song competition, dance competition, we’ll be having a choir competition as well as part of that. We’re really hoping for a big turn out because the prizes will be better than all our other competitions because it is supported by Rotary International, they are putting their whole effort behind the choir competition. Also as part of the Youth Festival, there is going to be a photo voice exhibit, that is an advocacy exercise to raise awareness on the situation of youth unemployment in the Solomon Islands.”
The Youth at Work Programs Manager adds the Program has worked with over 1,600 unemployed youths in Honiara since it started in 2012.
“Youth at Work started in 2012 and it is now in its fifth phase so each phase is six months, so it has progressed a lot. Initially, we were just a one year program and we’ve grown so much that it’s like embedded hopefully in Honiara society. We have worked with over 1,600 youth and of that 1,000 have completed internships and currently, we have probably nearly 200 or so in internships and so constant rotation of youth in internships in and around Honiara.”