USAID Says YES to Georgian Youth
Hotel Rixos Borjomi hosted a youth employment program inauguration session last week. The program, entitled Youth Entrepreneurial Skills for Advancing Employability and Income Generation in Georgia, (YES Georgia), held its opening briefing and a seminar for media to raise awareness on the project.
The USAID-sponsored program, specially tailored to youth aged between 17-25, will be implemented in Tbilisi and 20 municipalities of Georgia involving start-up grants for up to 30 new youth business initiatives. YES also incorporates an internship program in 20 companies and is initiating a discourse on issues of youth self-employment and employment in Georgia.
Along with the USAID (the US Agency for International Development), Crystal Fund and PH International Georgia office are dedicated to helping young and creative Georgian entrepreneurs receive professional knowledge in business and develop their own business plans.
YES is set to boost youth employment in Georgia. Among the other eye-catching features, it includes a three-month training program designed by local and international experts that will train over 600 youth throughout the 30 months of its operation. More, some twenty companies will also offer three-month internship programs to over 400 motivated and business-oriented youth.
As a part of the information session, the hosts arranged a discussion panel composed of some savvy entrepreneurs and investors from America and Europe. The panel members, moderated by Chief of the Crystal Fund, Archil Bakuradze, shared their knowledge and experience regarding youth entrepreneurship and business opportunities in Georgia.
Fredrick Hyde-Chambers, a developer of the first Business and Parliament Dialogue Centers in Westminster Parliament, emphasized the project’s importance and provided his unique input of entrepreneurship in Georgia. The esteemed business consultant underscored that the most efficient key to success is being able to fail.
In addition, US investor and Director of Equity for Developing World Markets, Aleem Remtula, told GEORGIA TODAY that youth have some keys for developing a good business strategy and entrepreneurs should learn from them.
Keith Young, an Entrepreneur with considerable expertise in the publishing, communications and new technology industries, and Jan Dewijngaert, an investment officer of Belgium-based Incofin IM, emphasized some of the priorities of the Georgian investment environment, stating Georgia is a comfortable place for investments and what the country needs is more confidence. Sharing their respective success stories, the businessmen suggested that it is just these next generations who can bolster Georgia’s entrepreneurship and advance the Georgian economy.
This is not the first time for USAID to provide its unwavering support for advancing varied sectors in Georgia, ranging from democracy to economy, education and youth.
Throughout over two decades of close ties, the US has assisted Georgia in transforming itself from a failed state into a success story in the region of the South Caucasus. And one of the instruments for implementing the US assistance in Georgia is USAID.
Currently, viewing youth unemployment as one of the major social problems in EU-aspired Georgia, USAID has said another YES to Georgia to attack its vulnerability in the area of the youth and help them build a better future by transforming into a successful and prosperous generation.
Zviad Adzinbaia