The United States Embassy public affairs officer, Rebecca Archer-Knepper, will work with Fijian youths to prepare them for the 21st century workforce.

She hosted a reception at her residence on Friday night to build empowered partnerships in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) community and promote youth opportunities.

“The event is to bring people from different fields to come together to cross collaborate and come up with ideas on how we can get more Fijian youths interested in STEAM,” Ms Archer-Knepper said.

“One of the goals of the diplomacy section of the embassy this year is about getting youths interested in the STEAM. This is where the jobs are in the 21st century.

“Our goal is to prepare Fiji’s youth for a 21st century workforce and whether that’s to become engineers, accountants, architects, physicians or them creating their own business through entrepreneurship.

“We are trying to come up with creative ways we can work together across academia, government, non-government and the business sectors about how we can get Fiji’s youth ready for the 21st century workforce.”

Those interested will work with Ms Archer-Knepper.

“We don’t exactly know what we are going to do and that is why we are talking to people and we want to find out what works and what are some of the good ideas,” she said.

“We want to find out what the business communities need and what the universities need for their students to be ready for these fields.

“The point is to listen and come up with ideas on how we can collaborate and what we can do.

“We are planning on doing something and I don’t know if it’s going to be a workshop or curriculum development programme or it might be on science.

“I don’t know what exactly it will look like and that is why we are doing this. I am new to Fiji and I don’t know what works here and what the challenges are.”

Edited by Percy Kean

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