UNFPA/Gender Department mentors 61 teenagers

Sixty-one teenagers in the Bono and Bono East Regions have undergone a two-day mentorship and skills training to build on their potentials and also improve on their general well-being.

They comprised 21 out-of-school and 40 in-school boys and girls selected from Techiman and Nkoranza Municipalities and Pru District of the Bono East Region and the Sunyani West District of the Bono Region.

The Department of Gender in collaboration with the National Youth Authority (NYA) with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) organised the workshop, which taught and exposed the teenagers to easily access and manage their sexually reproductive healthcare.

The adolescent boys and girls also had the opportunity to undergo intensive employable skill training in bead making and liquid soap production and body make-ups during the workshop held at Fiapre in the Sunyani West District.

Mrs. Jocelyn Adii, the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regional Director of the Department of Gender noted that adolescent population was vulnerable, thus, the need to help in inspiring them to aspire to higher height in society.

She indicated that helping to unearth, groom and build the potentials and talents of younger people was necessary because it would motivate them to have focus and build on those potentials to become responsible adults.

Mrs. Adii commended the UNFPA for its continuous funding support towards ensuring proper upbringing and development of boys and girls, saying, such support was making huge impact in the lives of younger people.

She noted that besides the skill training they had acquired; the camp had also exposed most of the participants to city life, which would greatly impact on their thinking pattern and positively influence their daily lives.

Mrs. Beatrice Nkum, the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regional Coordinator of Girl-child Education who took the participants through the liquid soap and bead-making, admonished the out-of-school ones to use the skills they had acquire to do business.

She said skill training was very important component of informal education, saying that sector easily fetched jobs for unemployed people to enhance their socio-economic livelihoods.

Mrs. Robin Appiah, the Sunyani Municipal Health Promotion Officer, advised the teenagers to abstain from sex and admonished those who could not to always avoid unprotected sex.