Youth in mining communities ‘schooled’ on rights and responsibilities

Some youth from Mining Communities in Ghana have been educated on financial resources accruing to District Assemblies through the Minerals Development Fund and urged to take in interest in how it is expended.

This was at a workshop on the Rights of Youth in Mining Communities and Local Content Initiatives organized by the Youth For Development Network an NGO.

Ghana has been mining gold and other resources for hundreds of years but the jury is still out on whether the country has really benefitted from the Mining industry or is worse off.

In a bid to help the country benefit more from the mining industry, the Youth In Development an NGO believes that creating awareness among local communities affected by mining on policies and laws aimed at getting Ghana to benefit more from Mining is the surest way of influencing enforcement.

In line with this the NGO, organised a two-day workshop for 40 youth from the mining communities in the Eastern, Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions.

Speaking to Radio Ghana at the event the Executive Director of Youth in Development, Akua Kusi said they hope to make the youth able to push for their due in the utilization of minerals revenue with plans on getting them to use the information obtained through the workshop.

The two-day Programme saw the participants being taken through topics like Citizens Participation in Mining Decision Making, The role of communities, Group Dynamics and Communication Skills and Promoting Community Participation in Mineral Revenue Utilization.

During one of the sessions, a resource person, Ephraim Atuburuah, of WACAM urged the Youth to unite and ensure that the Minerals Development Fund along with other laws of the land geared towards development are followed to the letter by Duty Bearers.