Rwandan youth will work towards tackling unemployment at a panel called TwumveTwumve, scheduled for later today.

TwumveTwumve, a monthly forum sponsored by the Kigali Global Shapers serves as an avenue to discuss issues affecting Rwandan youth.

This month’s forum, titled ‘Where are the Jobs?’, will be held at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

It is a joint venture between the Kigali Global Shapers, a branch of the Global Shapers Community which aims at engaging Rwandan youth in transforming their country and Youth Employment Systems Rwanda, which uses policy and programming to promote youth employment.

"We want to have a discussion platform where people can actually share ideas,” said Claude Migisha, the curator of Kigali Global Shapers. 

"We’re going to have all stakeholders in one room to discuss about how we can help people prosper,” Migisha added.

Migisha said TwumveTwumve creates a forum where Rwandan youth can share ideas with Rwandan authorities. It also offers opportunity for networking.

This month’s forum will have a panel of professionals from key areas that relate to youth unemployment, such as government policy, access to finance, youth entrepreneurship, and youth serving organisations.

Issues to be addressed include government’s effort towards curbing unemployment and what other countries are doing to tackle the problem and what Rwanda can learn from such countries.

It will also look at the role of the private sector, entrepreneurship, and individual advocacy in job creation.

"The main goal of this forum is to spur Rwandan youth to begin envisioning their future in line with Vision 2020, where they will be the major productive force driving the nation’s development agenda,” said YES Rwanda in a statement.

The forum, the statement said, aims to put youth at the forefront of crafting solutions to the employment crisis.

"If you are young and seeking for a job or you want to access capital from an institution, you can easily get information on how to do that,” said Migisha, explaining why youth should attend the event.

"It’s an opportunity for discussion and learning and for getting to know other people and what they are doing,” he said.

With 67 per cent of the population being younger than 25 years of age, unemployment is increasingly becoming an issue in the country.

Statistics show that each year, 100,000 young people enter the labour market, but only one per cent of these manage to find gainful employment.

According to YES Rwanda, when youth manage to find jobs, they are paid meagre salaries and work in deplorable conditions.

The organisation has already done much to promote youth employment.

Currently, they run a website and office that connects youth to jobs and promote youth employment through research and advocacy campaigns. They also run training programmes to help young people obtain skilled employment.

Migisha said this is the Kigali Global Shaper’s first venture into tackling unemployment, but it is only the start of a larger discussion.

"We want to collect ideas from people who can influence policy. It all starts with enthusiasm, sharing and discussion,” he said.