A youth employment program that is a central part of the social policy of President López Obrador has reached its goal of giving scholarships to a million young people.

The “Youth Building the Future” program, which is managed by the Labor and Social Welfare Secretariat (STPS), gives scholarships of 3,600 pesos (US $182) a month to young people between the ages of 18 and 29 to work at government agencies, nonprofits and private enterprise. According to an STPS press release, the program was able to meet its goal for 2019 in just eight months.

“Thanks to the participation of the private sector, of public institutions and civil society, the ‘Youth Building the Future’ program has been able to connect 900,000 young people to various employers around the country, as well as 100,000 young indigenous people in rural areas,” the STPS said.

The STPS statement added that the program will search for ways to improve for 2020.

“We are grateful to all the young people and their teachers, who have made it possible for the program to achieve its goal of giving young Mexicans the possibility of reaching their professional goals, and giving them the tools they need to have a better future,” the STPS said.

Although the program was a success on the national level, it failed to meet its goals in the state of Baja California Sur. Federal super-delegate Víctor Castro Cosío recognized that the program’s rollout in the state “can be considered a failure.”

“The program did not meet the goal we set,” he said. “More than 3,000 young people signed up in Baja California Sur, which is a good number, and it was a good program for them. However, there were many others who did not trust us, many people did not sign up, and we were unable to fill our capacity of 11,000. We didn’t reach our goal, we think, because many young people here preferred to look for work elsewhere, as the 3,600 pesos a month didn’t seem like a lot.”

Applications to the program will reopen in 2020.

Source: Milenio (sp)