Press Release
Ministry of Natural Resources launches Annual Youth in Natural Resources Apprenticeship Programme
The Ministry of Natural Resources today, Monday August 5, 2019 launched its third Annual Youth Apprenticeship programme at the Herdmanston Lodge. The event was attended by Hon. Sydney Allicock, First Vice-President and Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs, Hon. George Norton, Minister of Social Cohesion, Hon. Valerie Garrido-Lowe, Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples Affairs, Chairpersons and Commissioners of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) and the Guyana Gold Board (GGB), as well as senior staff the Ministry of Natural Resources, previous apprentices, stakeholders and partner companies that support the programme.
The new cohort of 30 youth participants, received a warm welcome and an overview of the programme including snippets of previous activities, testimonials from previous apprentices and a charge by Hon. Raphael Trotman, Minister of Natural Resources.
During his remarks the Hon. Minister emphasized the primary objectives of the programme as to first “urgently involve youth in the protection and preservation of our natural resources and to secondly, portray work in the extractive industries as an honourable vocation”.
Minister Trotman reminded the gathering that “we have a patrimony worth protecting” and assured the participants that the Ministry was ‘taking them into the “fold” and “under its wings” and they will become a part of the colourful fabric of the Natural resources sector. He also encouraged them to bring their “youthfulness” and ability to “think outside of the box” and to use technology in new and different ways to improve the efficiency of the sector.
The Youth in Natural Resources Programme is the brainchild of Hon. Raphael Trotman and welcomed its first group of 16 youth participants in 2017. The programme gives apprentices a firsthand experience of the functioning and operations of the sector, provide opportunities to discover or re-discover Guyana’s regions and expose youth to hands-on training and in-depth understanding of resource management, environmental care, green business opportunities etc.
In the coming weeks youth will visit gold, bauxite mining and forestry operations and contiguous communities as well as petroleum companies. They will travel along the Berbice River, visit Fairview on the Essequibo River, the vast Savannahs of the Rupununi en route to Lethem and New Amsterdam and Skeldon among interesting places.
