ZAMBEZI COOPERATIVE TO RECRUIT VULNERABLE YOUTHS

WE have embarked trained vulnerable young people in agriculture courses for possible recruitment in our farms countrywide, Zambezi National Cooperative Chairperson Vincent Siandyebe has said.

Speaking to The Scoop, Mr. Siandyebe said the cooperative was aimed at empowering vulnerable youths in different agriculture activities on their farms.

“The initiative targets to empower vulnerable men and women in our society and supplement the government’s effort of reducing poverty levels in the country because the Government cannot employ everyone so through this project, we hope to train more vulnerable youths that will come on board,” he said.

He said the cooperative would focus on people in the rural areas where they were struggling to find employment to sustain their livelihoods.

“As a cooperative our main focus will be in the rural areas where we have more vulnerable young people who are mostly school dropouts and unemployed and have no better means to sustain themselves. This project will give them an opportunity to earn a living and sustain their livelihoods,” he said.

Mr. Siandyebe has since invited the youths that were interested to join the cooperative to apply for membership.

“We currently have farms in four provinces where we are going to empower the vulnerable youths and we are trying to bring people together so that we can help one another. We are hereby inviting every youth to work with Zambia national cooperative so that they can be helped financially. We want to move together as a team and improve everyone’s livelihoods.

“It came to our attention to see a number of youths in our country especially in rural areas unemployed without businesses to feed their families. We also targeted rural areas because agriculture is the main activity that takes place and a number of youths would be interested,” he said.

He added that the enrolled youths would be aligned in different agriculture practices such as livestock, piggery, chicken rearing, horticulture, aquaculture among others.

“We have different activities on our farms that the youths will be engaged in depending on one’s strength of work and interest though they are only limited to one activity after training in order to give chance to other youths that may join the cooperative along the way,” he said.