Skilled Youth Initiative

In Pakistan and particularly in Kashmir tourism sector has been neglected even though there is a huge potential to this sector. There is no tourism institute in the whole of Kashmir and it is not part of any course at any level of education, while more then 50% of kashmiri’s directly or indirectly are associated with the tourism and hospitality industry. The purpose of starting this initiative is to give skills for employability to the community in the field of hospitality and tourism e.g hotel management, hospitality management, travel agent, tour operating, house keeping, cooking, customer service, front desk, management and finance. The project seeks to introduce such courses that will lead to greater chances of employability for those who are either already associated with the tourism industry or seek to enter into the industry. This will not only enable them to get jobs in the field but also run their own business as entrepreneurs such as travel agents, transport services, hotels, restaurants etc thus enabling and helping the community to develop and progress. The project will also help in raising awareness and providing social and economical benefits to the people of AJK there is a need for such an initiative.Tourism for life mission is of “Bringing positive change through proactive tourism” and we have developed this programme “Skilled youth initiative (SYI)” where the main aim is to raise awareness about the socio-economic benefits of tourism development and give skills for employability targeted at youth (unskilled and deprived). The programme consists of concept development trainings, full 4 day trainings on tourism and socio-economic development that includes not only educating the youth about the worlds 2 nd largest industry, its positive impact on cultures, society and the globe but also how they can build their career in the field of tourism and hospitality through entrepreneurship and working on Tourism development projects (TDP’s) or community based tourism projects (CBTP’s). The whole programme is in support with the ministry of tourism and stakeholders related to the tourism industry.The project is based on Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) no 1, 2, 7 and the AIDA plan (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action). It focuses on young people with the objective to provide skills for employability and to raise awareness about the positive socio-economic benefits of tourism to eradicate poverty and sustain the environment through its “Skilled Youth Initiative”.