New youth centre opens

(From second left) MBPP councillor Edward Tan, Soon and PYDC general manager Gwee Sai Ling at the launching of Pusat Belia Balik Pulau in Kuala Jalan Bharu, Balik Pulau.

MANY youths showed up at the newly launched Pusat Belia Balik Pulau in Penang to catch an open interview session offering some 1,000 jobs at two large corporations.

The open interview session was held at the centre with the cooperation of Flex and Greateach Integration, which are electrical and automation companies in the state.

The session was held in conjunction with the launching of the centre on Saturday.

State youth and sports committee chairman Soon Lip Chee said the centre, which opened in August this year, was supposed to open much earlier.

“Due to the pandemic, we had to postpone the ceremony even though the centre opened on Aug 27.

“This centre used to be a hall for the Kuala Jalan Bharu Village Community Management Council (MPKK).

“But it has since been converted into Pusat Belia Balik Pulau,” he said.

He said works to turn the hall into a youth centre by Penang Youth Development Corporation (PYDC) and Kuala Jalan Bharu MPKK started in April.

“Both MPKK and PYDC members jointly helped to clean and prepare the necessary facilities, besides setting up the recreational spots and more,” he added.

With this facility, PYDC now has four such centres in the state, namely Pusat Belia Bertam, Pusat Belia Penanti, Pusat Belia Penaga and Pusat Belia Balik Pulau.

“These centres are part of the state’s initiatives to provide development for youths especially in the outskirts of the city.

“For example, PYDC earlier organised a ‘We Want You’ programme to help bring job opportunities to the youths.

“Our three other centres on the mainland were used as spaces for youths without computers to undergo online job interviews,” he pointed out.

He said this helped some 66 people undergo online job interviews with a success rate of 80.3%.

“Out of the 66, 53 of them were offered jobs after the interviews.

“Thus, we hope these centres can be fully utilised to help the youths.

“This will help us achieve our objectives, which is to use the centres as an activity space for youths to be involved in community programmes and to encourage them to interact,” he added.