Youths of Suhum Municipality benefit from YEEP and MTN skills training

Plan International Ghana together with MTN, Ghana’s biggest telecom giant, have provided 50 young persons of Suhum Municipality with employable skills in mobile phone repairs to enable them set up their small businesses.

The beneficiaries who went through 15 days of training have also been presented with start-up kits, kiosks and certificates.

Madam Maud Tsagli, Plan International Senior Management Member, in an address, said the time had come for rapid paradigm shift towards transformative training systems to develop the knowledge, skills and creativity of the youth for them to acquire decent jobs to sustain themselves, families and Ghana as a whole.

“It was for this reason that Plan International Ghana collaborated with MTN Ghana to provide opportunity for skills development and decent youth employment under the Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Project (YEEP) for young men and women in the Eastern Region,” she said.

She said this was in fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goal (Goal 8), which calls for decent living standard and economic growth.

Madam Tsagli said the initiative would give over 100 youth, employment opportunities that would lead to poverty reduction and sustainable jobs in the Nsawam Adoagyiri and Suhum Municipalities.

She said the first batch of the beneficiaries of the project were selected from various communities in the Nsawam Adoagyiri Municipality and successfully graduated in January 2021.

She said despite the fact that technical and vocational skills development and entrepreneurship were increasingly recognised as drivers for economic and social development, particularly among young people, it still faced some challenges.

“The main one is the fact that technical training suffers from low esteem, low appreciation and low appeal. However, this is not the case of the YEEP, as the project was designed to provide properly thought-through sustainable solutions to encourage the youth, particularly young women to participate in this field traditionally considered as a male-dominated field,” Madam Tsagli said.

She congratulated the graduates for their passion to pursue their goals and aspiration and encouraged them to make every effort to excel in their endeavours.

“As you are probably aware, the labour market in Ghana has remained in a state of full employment and that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in 2020 stayed low at approximately 4.51 per cent with employment earnings improving continuously.

“So there are a wealth of opportunities waiting for you in this field, and I have every confidence that your efforts will pay off. Today, you are armed with one of the most important tools needed to forge your path ahead. I am not talking about the certificate and the start-up kits – it’s about what you have learned along the way and what you do with the education you have gotten in your journey to graduation. That’s what really counts”.

Madam Margaret Darko Darkwa, the Suhum Municipal Chief Executive, expressed gratitude to Plan International Ghana and MTN Ghana for their bold initiative to provide skills training for the youth of the area.

She said the skills provided to the young persons in mobile phone repairs would alleviate their plight of travelling to Koforidua, Accra, Nkawkaw and elsewhere to access such services.

Madam Darkwa advised the graduates to use the skills acquired to build their future by being committed and hardworking, which would help them to reach far in life while impacting the knowledge received to others.

She said the government introduction of Planting for Food and Jobs, the NABCO, and others were all geared towards improving the lives of the youth and asked them not to rest on their oars but take advantage of the opportunities.