Linden ICT graduates establish youth group to share skills with other youths

DPI, Guyana, Thursday, July 26, 2018

Thirty-seven Linden youths have taken the initiative and established their own youth group, Linden Youth Network (LYN), with the aim of empowering other youths within the communities of Linden.

Members of LYN were themselves significantly empowered by the recently concluded five-week Information Communication Technology (ICT) workshop hosted by the Office of the First Lady in collaboration with the Board of Industrial Training. The 37 youths were presented with a BIT certificates. During the five-week workshop the youths were also trained in both soft and technical skills which include Communication Skills, Telephone Ethics, Interviewing tips and time management, Mouse basics and keyboard references, Introduction to commuters, Microsoft office, Literacy and Numeracy, STEM Robotics and Sexual and Reproductive health.

LYN conducting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training at the ICT hub located in the LEN’s Business Centre

LYN members with Deron Adams [centre]

LYN has already made strides in commencing the very first workshop in which they themselves will be the facilitators. The mission of the youth group is to enable youths to develop the skills needed to function in a technological society, more so to become qualified for a job. LYN members would have already prepared forms to be sent into the various communities for youths to sign up to participate in the first ICT workshop that will be done at the ICT hub located in LEN.

After this 12-week centralised workshop is completed, LYN will be going into the various communities, to conduct ICT training. Several communities in Linden including Cinderella City, Block 22, Wisroc, Victory Valley, Bamia and Coomacka all have ICT hubs. LYN believes that these community hubs must see maximum utilisation and not just serve as an aid for the completion of assignments, but as an empowerment venue.

LYN member Johanna Allicock noted, “it must be an ongoing process, the entire community must benefit because technology is growing faster and faster and we want to empower the youths, we want to prepare their minds.”

Providing significant help to them is ICT entrepreneur in Linden, Deron Adams, who is seeking out support and sponsorship for the youth group. He said that the recently concluded ICT workshop would have exposed young people in a focused way, to the global world of technology.

“It is my hope that youths will seize this opportunity and recognized ICT as more than a means for social media, but as a tool for ICT enabled innovations such as the internet and how its strategic use may transform the way we work, live, form relationships, communicate and entertain ourselves,” Adams posited.

Story and Images: Vanessa Braithwaite