GYEEDA graduates 3,227 Hair dressers and dressmakers in Upper West

Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) have graduated 3,227 hair dressers and dress makers under its trade and vocation module in the Upper West Region.

The trades and vocation module is in line with GYEEDA’s new strategic plan that focuses on the development and promotion of entrepreneurial skills and sustainable micro business ventures among the youth.

The graduation ceremony which took place at the forecourt of the Regional Coordinating Council saw a total of 2,227 dressmakers and 999 hair dressers in the Region graduating.

Mr. Abuga Pele, the Executive Director of GYEEDA in a speech read on his behalf by Mr. Nurideen Saani, the Regional Director for GYEEDA noted that graduates would receive free start-up kits as part of the business set up process. They will be mentored to practice the trade, earn income and grow the business. He noted that GYEEDA had been transformed into a sustainable and a better funded employment agency.

Mr. Pele said arrangements were being made to position GYEEDA as a coordinating agency of all other youth employment and youth entrepreneurial development activities within the public and private sectors.

He stated that the World Bank had agreed to finance the Youth Enterprise Project, which would bring together youth groups and individuals who had brilliant business ideas or proposals to be supported and mentored.

Alhaji Amidu Sulemana, Upper West Regional Minister in a speech read on his behalf noted that the solution to the creeping unemployment problem could be addressed through private sector job creation like GYEEDA’s trade and vocation module.

He stated that the module tried to imbue into its beneficiaries, skills that they could use to benefit them and that would address the perennial practice of young boys and girls moving to the urban centres to look for non-existent jobs.

Alhaji Sulemana advised beneficiaries to put the skills and knowledge they had gained into practice and also to train others who had not been fortunate to participate in the training session.

Mr. Faisal Webre Keliou, the Business Development Manager for Asongtaba Cottage Industry and Exchange Programme (AC&EP) noted that per the partnership between the two groups, Asongtaba was to facilitate and oversee the training of beneficiary youth in various vocations.

The overall goal, he noted, was to make beneficiaries economically independent and socially productive.

Mr. Keliou stated that in the Upper West Region Asongtaba had engaged about 195 master trainers for dressmaking and 157 for hair dressing.