‘iLead – The Creative Leader Academy’ launched by the Gozo Youth Council

The mission of the Gozo Youth Council is to provide a national forum for youths and youth organisations in Gozo to effectively develop, promote and advocate youth initiatives and policy making in the youth field.

During a press conference for the recent launch of ‘iLead – The Creative Leader Academy’ by the Gozo Youth Council, Marc Schembri President of the GYC said that the problem identified for this project is the brain drain that the island of Gozo is suffering due to the lack job opportunities on the island. “The lack of opportunities has created apathy in the young generation.”

He added that through this project, the participants will be trained on how they can become leaders, they can negotiate and discuss policies that affect them by broadening their networks of contacts in order to create larger networks of cooperation.

Ryan Mercieca the Project Leader, added that the academy will host a number of training sessions, workshops and conferences with International and local experts in the coming 18 months.

“GYC believes that a vision and plan for Gozo should be created beyond partisan politics and the young people participating in this academy will have such role. The council firmly stands to the position that once the brain drain will start to be directly tackled, only than the situation of Gozo will start to improve, Mercieca said.

Ms Graziella Schiavone from SOS Malta administering the EEA Grants praised the GYC as the first organisation from Gozo to benefit from such funds, saying that “the project is a promising one.”

Ms Miriam Teuma, CEO of Agenzija Zghazagh, who will be the main partner and co-financing the project congratulated the council for taking such initiative and that this project falls in line with the national youth policy and Agenzija Zghazagh work in empowering the youths of Gozo.

Applications are now open till the 15th of January 2015. To register please see www.gozoyouthcouncil.com ^[1] and dates of the sessions are found under the iLead section.

Photograph: DOI/Pierrre Sammut