Caption: Minister for Youth and Sports Hon. Laisenia Tuitubou with members of the Legalega Youth committee.Photo:SUPPLIED.
The Minister for Youth and Sports Honourable Laisenia Tuitubou recently visited the youth of Legalega in Nadi to look at how Government can best develop western youth groups.
While addressing the youths of Legalega, Mr Tuitubou stated that it was government’s duty to visit communities and cater to their needs.
“We as civil servants need to go down to the people and that is one of the concept of this government is to come to the people and listen to their needs because it will give us a benchmark on how to standardise our service and also to give us an overview of how we are performing,” Mr Tuitubou said.
Minister Tuitubou added that youth development in the country was an integral part of government’s service.
“I want the youth of Legalega to know and understand that the government believes in inclusiveness no matter the size of the youth group, no matter how far the youth group may be from the rural centre, no matter if it’s in the interior or smallest island in Fiji, we will get that service to them.
“We are visiting youth groups wherever they may be so we can gauge how we are providing our services and to also work on improving it,” he said.
“As I’ve mentioned before, no matter how small the youth group, the government is here to look after you for the next four years.”
The youths of Legalega also had a chance to engage in a talanoa session with Minister Tuitubou whereby he informed them of the effectiveness of such talanoa sessions.
“The ministry has had previous talanoa sessions with other youth groups and during the International Youth Forum which was held last month, we engaged in discussions with over 450 youths from the four divisions.
“This goes to show how committed the government is to developing the youths of Fiji and this was where we were able to capture the needs of youth groups and we followed up on some of the requests from Ba, Nadi and other places during the talanoa sessions,” Mr Tuitubou added.
Minister Tuitubou also thanked the youth group for being consistent and urged them to continue to work with the ministry.
Legalega youth club president Mohammed Irfaz thanked the Honourable Minister for visiting their youth group and the community.
“Thank you very much for coming here to Legalega as this is the first time for a government minister to come visit Legalega and this is no doubt a confidence booster for us,” Mr Irfaz said.
Issues brought up by youths of Legalega included the need for a tent to conduct blood donation drives, chairs to be used during functions for income generating purposes and training workshops for the youths.
Legalega youth club is one of the successful youth clubs in the Western Division and has won a number of prizes from the Ministry of Youth and Sports over the years.
DEPTFO