MANCHESTER, Jamaica — Fifty-six young people from communities in north-west Manchester were recently recognised for their achievement in the Central Jamaica Social Development Initiative (CJSDI).

Speaking at Sunday’s graduation ceremony held at the Golf View Hotel in Mandeville, CJSDI Director Damion Young reiterated that the initiative was geared at entrepreneurship training.

“We salute these 56 graduates who can say they have pressed through discouragement. They pressed through frustration. They can say they pressed through tiredness and also through negativity,” he said.

He said of the 56 graduates only two men completed the programme.

“Special acknowledgement is also due to Anthony King and Sean Rainor; they stayed the course and finished with excellence. They were three men for the programme, but King and Rainor are the ones who pursued and stood out,” said Young.

Among the graduates was also mother-daughter duo Rutanya Mullings and Sophia Sharpe.

Young, who is also a member of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and caretaker for Manchester North Western, said the four-month hospitality training programme was supported by the Heart/NSTA Trust.

Minister of Labour and Social Security Pearnel Charles Jr commended the graduates and encouraged them to make use of job opportunities.

“We need the best of the best to represent our country locally and abroad. Having gone through this training and the experience. I am going to ask the conveners of the programme to make sure that anyone of the 56 of you that is interested in the programmes that we have at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security that you put your resumes together in haste,” he said.

He also commended Young for spearheading the initiative and supporting the Government’s push for training young people and lowering unemployment.

“…Continue the good work. Your entire team is getting it done for Jamaica. When a lot of people are out there chiding the Government and what the Government is not doing even though we are at the lowest unemployment ever. Things are rough, and it is going to be rough until we completely climb out of where we were,” he said.

“For us to do that, it cannot be done just by the Government, it must involve the partners, it must require collaboration. It must require more persons like Damion Young to step with the vision, pull together a team of leaders around you and get things done,” added Charles Jr.