Youth Empowerment Initiative
Investing in young Gambians. Stay & Build
Every young Gambian who leaves on the Backway is a young Gambian whose country failed to offer them a better option. The National Builders Party does not accept that failure as inevitable. The Gambia has one of the youngest populations in Africa, and that demographic reality is simultaneously the country's greatest asset and its most urgent governance challenge. Young Gambians are ambitious. They are connected to global culture and aware of what is possible. They watch football leagues, follow music careers, observe what entrepreneurship looks like in more developed economies, and they want those things. What they find when they look for them at home is a sports infrastructure that cannot develop the talent it discovers, a creative industry without the studios or platforms to support it, a vocational training system disconnected from the labour market, and an enterprise environment without the accessible finance and mentorship that early-stage businesses require. The young man who takes the Backway is often not the least capable member of his generation. He is among the most resourceful and most determined. He is making a rational calculation that the risks of the journey are preferable to the prospects of staying. The National Builders Party's answer to that calculation is not a warning. It is a genuine change in the value proposition of staying.
A Gambia where a talented young footballer in Basse has a regional academy to train at and a pathway to professional representation. Where a young musician in Serrekunda has access to a recording studio and a national talent platform. Where a young woman who wants to start a business has a startup grant, a mentor, and a Business Development Centre that helps her register and grow. Where a young man who wants to learn a trade has a vocational programme that leads to a qualification employers respect. Where every town has a community gym, a sports court, and a creative space. Where youth have something to do, somewhere to belong, and something to work toward. That is how The Gambia competes with the Backway. With opportunity, not warnings.
The NBP will construct three national football academies, one in the North Bank, one in the South Bank, and one in the Kombos, opening a professional development pathway to talented young Gambians regardless of where in the country they were born.
Football is the heartbeat of Gambian youth culture. The sport already produces exceptional talent, as demonstrated by the number of Gambian-heritage players competing at the highest levels of European football. What the country lacks is the structured development pathway that takes raw talent through professional coaching and genuine league progression. Each academy will provide professional coaching from UEFA or CAF-qualified coaches, education support ensuring players complete their schooling alongside their development, sports science and nutrition programmes, physiotherapy and sports medicine, and a structured residential programme. Selection will be conducted through annual open regional trials so talent from every community has a pathway into the system regardless of financial means or connections. A scholarship programme will ensure no talented player is excluded because their family cannot afford participation. A formal partnership with the Gambia Football Federation and West African Football Union will create structured competitive league play for academy teams.
The NBP will construct modern multi-purpose sports arenas in every administrative region and build community sports courts, gymnasiums, aquatic centres, and athletics tracks that give every young Gambian somewhere to train, compete, and belong.
Each regional arena will host football, athletics, basketball, volleyball, indoor combat sports, music concerts, cultural festivals, and youth conferences, becoming a centre of community life as well as sport. An athletics track meeting IAAF standard dimensions will be incorporated into every regional arena. Community gymnasiums inspired by the YMCA model will provide fitness equipment, indoor sports courts, after-school programmes, and mentorship. Aquatic centres in major regions will introduce swimming lessons, national competitions, and lifeguard and water safety training, making swimming a life skill for Gambian children rather than a leisure activity only a few can access. Basketball courts in towns and schools, wrestling arenas modernised with safe facilities and organised national tournaments, community boxing gyms with formal amateur and professional league structures, and martial arts programmes covering taekwondo, judo, and karate will ensure every young person finds their sport. An annual National Youth Games, rotating across all regions, will bring young athletes together in multi-sport competition that builds national pride.
The NBP will build the creative infrastructure that Gambian music, arts, and cultural talent has always deserved but never had: professional recording studios, a national talent platform, music rights management, and digital distribution that connects Gambian artists to global audiences.
A National Recording and Production Centre, equipped with professional recording studios, mixing facilities, video production equipment, and digital distribution infrastructure, will be established in Banjul. Community recording studios with industry-standard digital audio workstations will be established in all regional capitals. A Music Publishing and Rights Management Office will help Gambian artists register their intellectual property and access royalty collection systems, ensuring the creative work they produce generates the income they are owed. A digital music distribution programme will connect Gambian artists to international streaming platforms. An annual National Talent Competition broadcast nationally and streamed online will cover music, dance, drama, spoken word, and visual arts. Annual Gambia Music Awards will celebrate excellence across genres from kora and griot tradition through gospel, reggae, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. A Youth Film Festival open to filmmakers under 30 will celebrate Gambian youth perspectives. Music schools for vocal training and instruments will give young artists the formal foundation their talent deserves.
The NBP will equip young Gambians with the skills that lead to real employment and real careers, from sport-related trades and creative industry vocational pathways through construction skills and a national digital literacy programme that prepares every young Gambian for the economy they are entering.
Vocational training programmes through the NTEA network will include sport-related trades covering sports coaching certification, fitness instruction, sports facility management, and sports equipment maintenance. Creative industry pathways covering sound engineering, video production, graphic design, fashion design, and digital content creation will create careers in the creative economy. A construction trades priority programme will fast-track training in masonry, carpentry, electrical installation, plumbing, and project supervision, matching skills supply to the guaranteed demand created by the NBP's infrastructure programme. Mobile vocational training units will bring skills training to rural communities where young people cannot afford to travel to regional centres. A national Youth Digital Skills Programme will provide foundational digital literacy and an introduction to coding for all youth who complete it. A Gambia Youth Tech Challenge, held annually, will invite young Gambians to develop digital solutions to national development challenges.
The NBP will back young Gambian entrepreneurs with startup grants, business incubators, affordable credit, and the mentorship and market access support that transforms a good idea into a sustainable business that stays and grows in The Gambia.
A Youth Startup Grant Programme, administered through the NTEA enterprise support framework, will provide grants to young Gambians aged 18 to 35 with viable business plans and a completed business skills training requirement, prioritising businesses in sectors aligned with the national development plan. A Youth Business Incubator, co-located with the National Think Tank Centre and with regional hubs in all administrative regions, will provide subsidised workspace, business mentorship, market access support, and peer learning networks for up to 24 months. A Youth Enterprise Loan Scheme will provide access to affordable credit for business investment without the collateral requirements that currently exclude young entrepreneurs from the formal credit market. A Gambian Youth Export Programme will support young producers, artisans, and food processors in meeting the export standards and accessing the trade facilitation services required to sell their products in regional and international markets. Every young Gambian who builds a business here is a young Gambian who no longer needs to calculate whether the Backway is worth the risk.
The NBP will ensure that every sport programme, every facility, and every youth development opportunity is genuinely accessible to girls and young women, and to youth with disabilities, because inclusion is not an add-on to the Youth Empowerment Initiative, it is its foundation.
All sports development programmes, facilities, and competitions will operate on a gender-equal basis with equal investment in women's and men's programmes at every level. A dedicated Girls in Sport programme will target the cultural, logistical, and economic barriers that prevent girls from participating in organised sport at the same rates as boys, including appropriate changing facilities, female coaching staff, and community engagement with parents and traditional leaders. Youth with disabilities will be included in all community sports facilities through accessible design standards, with dedicated para-sport development programmes in athletics, swimming, and indoor sports. Women's football leagues, women's basketball, and women's athletics will all receive dedicated programming and competitive structures. Creative arts programmes will be equally accessible, with scholarship opportunities, talent competition categories, and studio access designed and promoted specifically to reach young women and girls in communities where their participation in public creative life has historically been limited.
The NBP will invest in the mental health and wellbeing of young Gambians, recognising that the pressures of poverty, family expectation, migration temptation, and the absence of opportunity create a mental health burden that sport and enterprise programmes alone cannot address.
Youth mental health counselling, integrated into all secondary schools from Year 2, will provide trained counsellors accessible to every secondary student as a standard part of the school provision rather than an exceptional service accessed only in crisis. Community youth workers, deployed through the National Youth Authority to every district, will provide the early intervention, guidance, and referral function that connects young people to the support they need before problems become crises. A national Youth Wellbeing Helpline, accessible by phone and messaging, will provide confidential support to young Gambians dealing with pressure, anxiety, family conflict, or the pull of risky migration. Peer support programmes, building on the social networks that youth sport and creative arts naturally generate, will create the community of belonging that is itself one of the most protective factors against the despair that drives dangerous choices. A young person with a community they belong to is a young person with a reason to stay.
The National Builders Party will support young Gambians who have returned from abroad with a genuine reintegration pathway, and will launch a national Stay and Build Campaign that celebrates the choice to build at home as the statement of pride and ambition it should always have been.
A Reintegration Support Programme will provide counselling, skills development, enterprise support, and community reintegration assistance to returned migrants, treating return as an opportunity for a new start rather than a source of shame. A national Backway Awareness Programme, developed in partnership with returned migrants who speak with the credibility of lived experience, will deliver honest information about the reality of irregular migration through schools, community centres, youth programmes, and social media. Community dialogue forums facilitated through traditional leaders, Alkalos, religious leaders, and youth workers will address the family and community pressures that contribute to migration decisions, building community-level awareness of the alternatives the Initiative provides. A national Stay and Build Campaign, broadcast through radio, television, and social media, will celebrate the success stories of young Gambians who chose to stay and build, turning every entrepreneur, every athlete, every musician, and every technician who built their career at home into proof that staying is not resignation. It is the better choice.
For Young Gambians
A football academy a bus ride from your community. A recording studio in your regional capital. A startup grant with real terms. A gym with subsidised membership. A digital skills course that leads to a qualification employers recognise. A counsellor at school when the pressure gets heavy. A competition where your talent gets seen nationally. And a government that has done the calculation and decided that investing in you here is worth more to The Gambia than any remittance you could send from there. You are the reason this initiative exists. You are the investment.
For Girls and Young Women
Equal access to every sport programme. Female coaches, appropriate facilities, and the community engagement that makes participation possible. A Girls in Sport programme that specifically targets the barriers your male peers do not face. Creative arts scholarship opportunities and studio access designed to reach you wherever you are. An enterprise programme that has already proven through the Women in Small Business initiative that Gambian women are among the most capable entrepreneurs in the country. The Youth Empowerment Initiative is built for you as much as for anyone. It will reach you.
For Every Family
A nation that invests in its youth invests in its future. Every family that watches a son or daughter take the Backway knows the weight of that goodbye and the fear that follows it. The Youth Empowerment Initiative is the government's commitment to making that goodbye unnecessary. Not by closing borders or issuing warnings, but by building the football academies, the recording studios, the business incubators, and the community facilities that make staying the rational choice. When hope returns, migration ends. The National Builders Party will build the hope.
The New National Standard for Gambian youth is not a warning about what happens to those who leave. It is an offer of what is available to those who stay. A football academy a bus ride away. A recording studio in the regional capital. A startup grant with real terms and real mentorship. A gym with subsidised membership. A digital skills course that leads to a qualification employers recognise. A community that sees young people as the asset they are rather than the problem they are assumed to be. The National Builders Party invests in youth because it has done the calculation. A young Gambian who builds a business, plays for a national team, releases music on international platforms, or qualifies as a technician is worth more to this country than the remittance from a young Gambian who made it to Europe and survived the journey. The choice is between investing in them here or losing them there. The National Builders Party chooses here.
A young Gambian with a football academy to train at, a recording studio to create in, a vocational programme to qualify through, a startup grant to launch with, and a community gym to belong to is a young person with a stake in the country they were born in. The Youth Empowerment Initiative is that stake. A nation that invests in its youth invests in its future. The National Builders Party invests in you.
Think Big. Build Big.
Read the plan. Join the movement.
Vote NBP