Over 700 youths from COMSIP groups have been identified to receive skills support to enhance their livelihoods under the Youth Challenge Support program.
COMSIP Cooperative Limited is implementing the Livelihood Support Program under the Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project (SSRLP)-a World Bank funded government project that aims at contributing towards a string safety net system, for enhanced livelihoods and poverty reduction.
Speaking to MIJ Online, Development Communication Officer for COMSIP-Mercy Chaluma-said youths who are beneficiaries under social cash transfer and Climate Smart Enhanced Public works program or proxies of the beneficiaries-will be trained in vocational skills of their choice.
“We are going to empower these young people with vocational skills and provide them with business starter packs to set up small scales businesses in their respective communities so that they should be able to provide social services and improve their livelihood”. Said Chaluma
COMSIP is targeting 1500 people in all the districts in the country and currently 738 youths have already been identified to undergo the vocational skills training.
According to Chaluma, this is a deliberate effort to empower the youths who are already coming from vulnerable households for them to be able to contribute in supporting their families and their communities.
“We decided to have this component because as some would already know, the targets of the social cash transfer program are mostly the elderly who are looked after by these young people. So, in this project we decided to involve young people so that if they engage in income generating activities, if they have their own small businesses then they will be able to further support the elderlies that are in social support programs.” Explained Chaluma
Initially COMSIP Cooperative Union was implementing the livelihoods component in 14 districts, targeting only Social Cash Transfer beneficiaries but the project has been extended to all 28 districts under the SSRLP program, adding to the list of beneficiaries those benefiting from Climate Smart Enhanced Public works program.
The SSRLP project will run up to 2025.