The Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China accredited near Monrovia, FU Jijun, says it was no mistake that the government of President George Weah opted to prioritize the giving of power to the citizenry through human resource capacity building and other appropriate means as outlined in the four-pillar Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD).
With youths being the future of the country, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Monrovia Vocational and Technical Center (MVTC) will have to play a more important role in the realization of the ‘glorious mission’, says Ambassador FU.
The diplomat was speaking at the weekend during a reception held in honor of 100 Liberian youths who have obtained advanced certificates of achievement having completed a 45-day Overseas Vocational Training Program for Liberian Youth – 2018, in the trade areas of electricity, auto repairs, and masonry.
In November, the government of China sent professors from renowned Shandong Foreign Trade and Vocational College to train a hundred Liberians who had graduated from the regular training offered by MVTC, to benefit from standardized training in their respective disciplines.
The beneficiaries were ‘rigorously’ vetted and admitted into the ‘addendum’ training program from hundreds of other applications, Youth and Sports minister said upon the arrival of the instructors from China.
This training was indicative of the eight China-Africa cooperation “win-win” initiatives which were outlined by President Xi Jinping in September at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), aimed at further solidifying bilateral relationship between China and countries in Africa.
China, as it has done many times, will provide more scholarships and training opportunities to “Liberian brothers and sisters and try to do its best in supporting the Liberian government and the people achieve their glory vision in the Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development,” says Ambassador FU.
Quite enthusiastic about their new achievements, some graduates of the overseas training told the Liberia News Agency shortly after a dinner that they are ambitious of helping to teach at their Alma Mata, the MVTC, as a way of transferring to others the knowledge and skills they have acquired.
Others spoke of their dream to mobilize resources and support from the government to establish their own firms.
One of the graduates, who described the training program as ‘a great initiative’, said that the government, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports, now has the responsibility to create employment opportunities (job placement) for them according to what each has learned.
A female colleague, who is a certified plumber, she said: “When we get the needed support from the government, we can embark on joint ventures and establish our own companies that will then create jobs for other young people; this means we will become employers and not employees.”
From the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Deputy Minister for Technical and Vocation Training Peter Bemah extended the Liberian government’s ‘extreme’ appreciation its Chinese counterpart for the Asian nation’s significant intervention it continues to make in the infrastructural and educational sectors of Liberia.
Bemah expressed confidence that the 45-day ‘universal’ vocational knowledge given those young men and women would transform their lives, communities, and, by extension, the society.
LINA
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