The cries of hundreds of well qualified youths across the nation pleading for jobs, prompted Member of Parliament for Couva North, Ramona Ramdial to host the first Couva North Youth Fair and Career Day at the Mid Centre Mall car park, Chaguanas on March 10. The event attracted private and public sector companies, NGO's, educational institutes, government ministries and the protective services. Booths were set up on the day to inform youths of their functions and possible career opportunities at their respective organisations. Participating organisations provided the young job-seekers with a listing of existing vacancies.
The Youth Fair and Career Day was endorsed by National Security Minister John Sandy, Minister in the Ministry of Works Stacy Roopnarine, Science, Technology & Tertiary Education Minister Fazal Karim and Chaguanas Mayor Orlando Nagessar. In her address to the audience, Ramdial disclosed that the fair would be an annual event, because "Government has realised the need to provide jobs for our young, qualified citizens and therefore sectors and employment for such must be created. "Public Sector reform is most urgently needed through the Ministry of Public Administration and economic diversification is also key to job creation for youths.
"Fields such as Ship Building and Repair, Film, Agriculture, IT services and the entire service industry as a whole have to be developed to accommodate this need," the MP opined. Feature youth speaker, Candel Cuffie, offered words of motivation to the nation's youth in her speech entitled, Mental Attitude, Success Dynamics of a World-Class Achiever. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was in praise of the high level of support for the initiative and requested that Ramdial host the event at various locations throughout T&T to facilitate youths from rural areas.