Casimiro Curbelo
That young people can stay on La Gomera should not be an exceptional aspiration, but rather a natural consequence of living on an island that believes in its people. For too long, many Gomeros have assumed that training and advancing professionally meant packing their bags. Study abroad, look for your first contract abroad and, too often, build a life far from home. That reality cannot be changed with good intentions. It changes with concrete opportunities.
That is why youth labor insertion must occupy a central place in any island project. We are not just talking about employment, but about roots. We are talking about a young person who has been trained being able to apply their knowledge here, contribute to public services, join the primary sector, tourism, social care, administration, innovation or any area where La Gomera needs talent and renewal.
The Cabildo's New Employment Opportunities Program is a good example of this way of understanding useful policy. Through its four editions, it has mobilized close to 2.97 million euros and has allowed 74 young people to access professional experience linked to their training. It is not a small number on an island like ours. Behind each contract there is a person who is beginning to make his way, a family who sees closer to the possibility that their children will not have to leave, and an administration that is reinforced with qualified profiles.
Furthermore, these programs have a value that is not always measured in economic balance sheets. For many young people, the first job opportunity makes the difference between continuing to try or giving up. It allows them to gain confidence, learn about the reality of their profession and demonstrate that they are prepared. And it also sends an important message: La Gomera is counting on them.
And in this objective we cannot forget the role of SMEs and the self-employed, which are also essential drivers of youth employability in La Gomera. Many young people find their first opportunity not only in public administration, but in small businesses, shops, tourism companies, family initiatives or professional projects promoted by those who support the real economy of the island every day. Therefore, if we want youth employment to continue, we must also strengthen those who can generate it. And to achieve this, unique fiscal tools are needed, adapted to the island reality, to help SMEs and the self-employed face the costs of hiring, training and retaining young talent in a territory with greater structural difficulties.
But it would be a mistake to look at employability as something isolated. Employment begins much earlier, in the classrooms, in scholarships, in mobility, in textbooks, in the possibility that no family sees their children's education limited for economic reasons. There, too, the Cabildo has been making a notable effort, with more than 3 million euros allocated to educational policies and nearly 2,500 students benefiting at all stages, through study aid, free books, support for travel and agreements with public universities.
This continuity between education and employment is precisely what La Gomera needs. Form and open doors. It is not enough to ask young people to stay; You have to give them real reasons to do it. And those reasons include contracts, experience, stability and future expectations.
La Gomera cannot afford to lose a prepared generation. Every young person who finds an opportunity on the island is also an opportunity for the entire Gomera society. Betting on them is not an obligation. Because the future of La Gomera will not be built far from here: it must be built here, with the young people of La Gomera as protagonists.
