(ANS – Nochchiyagama) – A Salesian-run vocational training center is helping underprivileged youth find employment in Sri Lanka's difficult job market. It gives school dropouts an advantage in facing the country's grave unemployment problem.

"I am in a good position to help my family financially and hope to have a better future," said 19-year-old W. Tiron Lakmal who stopped studying due to financial problems and undertook a welding course at the Don Bosco Vocational Training Center in Nochchiyagama.

Lakmal says he is grateful for the vocational training. Without it he would have been just another unemployed youth with no future and no confidence in finding work.

Decades of civil war left young people vulnerable and although the war is now over, unemployment still is a major problem facing the country.

“The center equips youth with the skills they need to compete in the labor market with courses to cover hotel management, technical training and computers,” said Salesian Father Reginald Fernando, who heads the center.

The center particularly trains school dropouts, regardless of religion, to face the “grave unemployment problem” in the country, he said.

According to the Sri Lanka Labor Force survey results, there were 422,446 unemployed persons during the first quarter 2015. The unemployment rate for those between 15-24 years of age for the same period is reported to be 21.7 percent. Youth currently comprise more than 23 percent of the total population.

The United Nations Development Program's 2014 National Human Development Report said unemployment for those between 20-24 years old has been around 40 percent for the past decade with only a slight decline in the past year.

Youth unemployment stems from the protracted war, deeply entrenched social factors of class, ethnicity and caste and that unemployment is particularly high in areas directly affected by the armed conflict, it said.

Lakmal was among 160 boys and girls to have completed training this year at the Salesian center. He says he is now confident of finding work.

Venerable Kirinde Chandarathana Thero, a Buddhist monk, said he is grateful for the center's work because those that pass not only have a skill at hand but are conscientious and disciplined and are able to work with Buddhists and Christians alike.

The Salesians of Don Bosco have been operating in Sri Lanka since 1956. In 1963 they set up their first technical institute and have since established 17 centers across the country.

Source: UCAN

Published 1/12/2015