NGO trains Youth in entrepreneurial skills

Mr. David Kofi Awusi, Advocacy Manager of Challenging Heights, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that envisions the rights of the child to education, has urged the Youth Employment Authority to streamline the National Youth Employment with regard to the prompt payment of allowances to beneficiaries of the programme.

“The apparatus promised them should also be released to them so that they can start their own businesses after they have graduated from the programme,” he stated.

Mr. Awusi made the call at the graduation ceremony for 63 Youth, the third batch of Youth the NGO has trained through its Youth Empowerment Programme (YED) at their office at Sankro, a community in the Effutu Municipality.

He disclosed that Challenging Heights would train 230 Youth in the Municipality by the end of they year, adding that since January this year, a total 170 Youth have been trained and graduated 170.

Mr Awusi added that the fourth batch of more than 60 Youth would be graduating in December.

The graduates had undergone a four-month internship in computer hardware and software, leadership and entrepreneurship training, free of charge.

Mr. Awusi said the programme was aimed at equipping the Youth with employable and entrepreneurial skills to enable them secure jobs or start their own small businesses, instead of going round looking for non-existent white collar jobs.

He explained that the Youth Empowerment Programme was practical and career-oriented, and the model involved getting students, especially the Youth, to develop personal business plans.

The Advocacy Manager said research had revealed that the NYEP was no more attractive to the Youth because the meagre allowances they received to subsidize their transportation and feeding was either delayed or irregular.

He, therefore, advocated that the Youth Authority urgently addressed these challenges so that the Youth could enroll on the NYEP, gain experience or skills to enable them enter full-time employment, or later establish their own businesses.

Mr. Awusi encouraged beneficiaries of the Youth Empowerment Programme to utilize the knowledge and skills they had acquired from the training to better their lot and that of others in the society.

The graduates were awarded Certificates of Participation.