About 600 Fijian youths are expected to benefit from life training skills that will be initiated by the Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises and Development (FRIEND) Fiji.
The Open Skills training was launched by the Commonwealth of Learning acting director skills, Frances Ferreira, at the FRIEND headquarters in Tuvu, Lautoka on Monday.
Ms Ferreira said the funded project was a huge one and hoped to engage 5000 youths from the Pacific until 2025.
“We are committed to making this change in Commonwealth countries and I am glad that we have partnered with FRIEND via this project to upskill youths’ knowledge in Fiji,” she said.
“We have partners that stay with us for many, many years and what we hope to see is the change in those who take up learning via this project.
“We are committed to making a change but we can’t do it without partners and so once we find a trustworthy partner we try to hold on to such a partner and then scale up projects.”
FRIEND founder and chief executive officer Sashi Kiran said they were honoured to be given the opportunity to upskill Fijian youths.
She shared that they noticed an increase in the unemployment trend during the pandemic and hoped to provide youths with the necessary training as well as the soft skills needed to fill employment demands in Fiji.
