A total of 40 youth drawn from Mvita Constituency have benefited from a vocational and technical training empowerment project funded by the Suleiman Shahbal Foundation.

The foundation has partnered with Iqra Youth Foundation in the project that will see the youth get trained in different technical courses to give them the necessary skills required to match the market demand.

Speaking during the launch of a 1.2 million sponsorship cheque for the six months program, the foundation’s director Malusha Abedi said that the project now in its pilot stage will be replicated in other sub-counties of Mombasa targeting 300 youths.

“Today we are issuing this bursary cheque worth Sh 1.2 million for the 40 students drawn from Mvita constituency, we plan to roll out the program in the county targeting to benefit at least 300 youth,” said Abedi.

Malusha added that after their six months training, the youth will undertake their internships at the Buxton housing project after which some will get the chance to be fully absorbed into the project.

He added that the foundation patron Suleiman Shahbal was also looking into using his business network in the country and outside to secure more job opportunities for the youth.

“We are hoping to absorb some of them in the buxton housing project, and also through our patron, we hope to secure more opportunities in other parts of the country and outside especially the in the Gulf countries,” said Abedi.

The director of Iqra Youth Foundation Abdalla Khalid said that the training will go a long way in helping to deal with the issues of joblessness among the youth, drug abuse, insecurity, illiteracy and above all develop the youth to improve their community.

“The aim of this project is to ensure that these youth will be in the job market very soon meant to empower them to be self reliant and help curb societal vices bedevilling the youth,” said Khalid.

He added that they were aiming to create an online platform to market the youth with different skills to be able to cater for customer needs with the click of a button.

“We are also targeting to market and link the youth with clients and customers using online platforms, this is because we desire for people to get quality and reliable services at the comfort of their phones,” said Khalid