Young leaders vital crown of listed goals
25.01.2010
The young leaders who graduated on Friday and future ones will form the diamond edge needed to cut further into the future towards clear targets President James Michel named in 2007.
They will be part of a team that will – as he said his National Day Address that year – drive key transformations launched for the development of Seychelles.
Twenty three Seychellois graduated from the Seychelles Young Leaders’ Programme in a ceremony presided over by Mr Michel and attended by Vice-President Joseph Belmont, Chief Justice Frederick Egonda-Ntende, cabinet ministers, leader of government business in the National Assembly Marie-Louise Potter and the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Wavel Ramkalawan as well as members of the diplomatic corps.
Saying the first mark of leadership is that of service to the people, President Michel noted for the long-term efficiency of government, it is critical that those with more experience are available to give a helping hand to those just starting out.
“Every leader, every manager, every decision maker must prepare their succession and offer support to those who walk the path behind them. This is the ongoing process of rejuvenation that is the essence of what the Young Leaders are about,” he said.
Mr Michel said we have 54 students enrolled in the inaugural class of the University of Seychelles, 229 students studying around the world on pre-service training, 50 people studying on in-service training, 47 studying at various institutions to work in our tanker programme and 34 have enrolled in the new cohort of Young Leaders.
“This represents a total annual investment of over R100 million. This is the investment that makes us ready for the future! This is the kind of investment my government will continue to make in the coming years.”
He noted the young leaders have already started contributing in the districts as he had envisaged in 2007, adding: “We have already seen how many young Seychellois have taken up new jobs that have been created – and sometimes in areas that we did not expect,” he said, listing other achievements which may have sounded like dreams only two years ago.
Mr Michel said on Friday the young leaders have learnt many skills and the benefits of sharing best practices, strong communication strategies and full transparency saying:
“We need to move beyond the day-to-day bureaucracy, and to do so we need professionals who are prepared to take responsibility for their actions. We need professionals who will communicate effectively with the Seychellois people. We need professionals who are accountable to the people.
In the National Day address he said the transformations he talked about would need our human resource as the most important resource.
“We need to have continuous training for the young generation that will take our country forward, both in the private sector and in government,” he said, then announced:
“That’s why I have decided to launch a scheme of Young Leaders in order to identify young graduates with the potential to become leaders and innovators.”
“Youth of Seychelles, we are entrusting the future of our people in your hands. And the future starts today!” he said.
These are some of the words Mr Michel used to describe a number of the proposed goals at the time:
“Firstly, we are transforming the way the country works; where necessary, we will undertake several reforms in government departments … to bring government closer to the people.”
He talked of conditions being created for everybody to take part in wealth creation thus placing the economic tools in the hands of our workforce as we see happening today.
“We want our districts to be vibrant centres for our people’s development,” he said at the time, and on Friday stressed the point.
In the National Day speech he said Seychellois would get opportunities to work for their share of the wealth our country generates and announced investment concessions would be applied across the board and small Seychellois owned hotels would benefit in the same way as a large five-star hotel as we see happening today.
He also talked of increased competition, giving us more opportunities to create wealth ourselves and referred to the creation of the University of Seychelles.