Under the umbrella of "Meshwary", a 3-year youth development initiative launched in 2008 by Barclays Bank Egypt in partnership with Unicef, Barclays Egypt held a one-day training for youth in Embrozo, Alexandria. The initiative was launched with the aim of aiding youth in their professional development by helping them acquire professional skills and providing them with the know-how and knowledge needed to work on small-scale projects.

The full day event was held at Al Nasr Youth center on May 1st, 2010, and was organized by volunteers and participants from Barclays, the Youth Association for Population and Development (YAPD) and Unicef.

The first half of the day included an interactive session attended by local officials, Unicef representatives, 65 Barclays employees and 40 girls and boys from the Meshwary project in Alexandria. During the session, volunteers from Barclays conducted interactive presentations on financial literacy, banking products, and communication and customer service skills.. Following the session, the youth and volunteers were divided into four work groups to paint the youth center wall, plant trees inside the youth center and in the streets surrounding it and clean the area around the center.

"In order to equip today's youth with the tools and knowledge needed to meet the demands of the corporate world, Meshwary is providing training and professional consulting to 45,000 girls and boys all over Egypt for a period of 3 years," said Rania Hasanen, Community Relations Senior Manager at Barclays. She also confirmed that the program targets 10 governorates in Egypt, namely: Cairo, Alexandria, Sharkeya, Monoufeya, Daqahleya, Ismailia, Asyout, Sohag, Qenna & Aswan.

"The program is part of Barclays international's strategy for youth population & development in 14 countries worldwide, including Egypt, Kenya and Botswana. The program is also heavily financed, with large investments being allocated towards this large-scale project. In fact, Egypt's share alone is $1m," she added.

Meshwary seeks to support youth between the ages of 13 and 24 in developing the necessary skills needed in today's corporate world. This is done through training them on how to work in teams, communicate effectively, plan for their future, and execute important decisions," said Salma Wahba, Development Executive at Unicef. "The training program also educates them on the current work culture so as to better prepare them to enter the workforce," she added. According to Wahba, more than 20,000 girls and boys have completed this training program.

The importance of this initiative stems from how it directly reflects the growing role the private sector is taking in establishing professional developmental awareness programs in order to eliminate unemployment. Meshwary, which targets one third of the Egyptian population, goes a step further, targeting those of lower economic and financial classes, where unemployment is higher. By supporting the development of these youth, the likelihood that the conditions of the communities in which they live will improve - and thus, their economic and social status will improve - is much greater.

AMEinfo