• Youth

44 students graduate from the Katutura Youth Enterprise Centre

Junior Kapofi

It was all joy and smiles as students graduated from the Katutura Youth Enterprise Centre (Kayec).

Of the 180 students who started various vocational training programmes on 17 January, 44 graduated recently. The courses the students graduated from include plumbing, joinery, early childhood development and fashion design, amongst others. The graduates also included inmates from the Windhoek Correctional Facility who are undertaking a rehabilitation process.

Kayec was founded in 1995, soon after Namibia gained independence, by the Anglican and Lutheran churches. The City of Windhoek gave Kayec land on which the first phase of the centre for out-of-school youth’s vocational training was constructed.

The centre has been providing vocational training to out-of-school youth and providing them with great opportunities until this very day.

Kayec director Nelson Prada stressed the importance of commitment and perseverance to all the graduates during his welcoming, seeing as only 44 students remained committed all the way to the end of the six-month programme. He also highlighted the importance of vocational training in Namibia, especially given the state of the economy.

Deputy minister of gender and equality, poverty eradication and social welfare, Bernadette Jagger said it is a well-known fact that developed economies all over the world were not built by PhD holders only, but by craftsmen and artisans. It is evident that artisans play a big role in society, she said.

Businessman Quinton Adolf emphasised the need to encourage more young people to start their own businesses in order to increase the number of employers rather than employees in an economy that is struggling.

“The situation in the country has gotten worse with the number of unemployed graduates, which leaves us no choice but to become job creators rather than job seekers,” he said.

Spending almost 24 years in prison, one of the inmates encouraged parents to invest into the future of their children. He further expressed his gratitude to the Kayec instructors and said his journey does not end here - he has already been accepted at the National Training Authority to further his studies.