Young people are potentially a tremendous force for a positive change in any community, country and the world as a whole.
- Tahmina, Bangladesh.
Unemployment is a problem, particularly for lower income youth in Bangladesh. While ther are over 300 training centers and well paying employment, lack of access to information about job opportunities and life skills and trade and entrepreneurial training are among some of the barriers for these youth. Tahmina Akter Supti created “Light for Life,” a two-day youth leadership and job skills development seminar to help break down some of these barriers.
The Global Women’s Dream Grant, a joint collaboration with Global Peace Women and Service for Korea, gave Tahmina's Global Peace Women Leadership Academy capstone project wings.
In addition to providing critical job search information to participants, Light for Life helped the youth develop their life-vision, identify core values, and cultivate important leadership, technical and entrepreneurial skills. Ashiqur, a program participant reflected, “I learnt many new things like organizing, team work, and marketing. Overall the experience was just amazing.”
There were challenges that Tahmina and her team had to navigate. Midway through the program there was an overflow of enrollees. Tahmina and her team had to adjust their program capacity to meet the unexpected interest. They also had to navigate through the Omnicron wave of COVID19 with health measures and cost increases. “Working in this challenging situation made me more capable, experienced, efficient and dynamite,” reflected Tahmina.
Tahmina has begun preparations for the next segment of Light for Life. She hopes her efforts can help raise a generation of service-minded women leaders in Bangladesh.
