The first batch of 386 Community Policing Assistants (CPA) recruited from the Eastern and Central Regions have graduated at the Koforidua Police Training School.
The graduates who were engaged under the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) were taken through six weeks intensive course and would be deployed to the communities to assist the Ghana Police Service to solve security challenges in the country.
Speaking at the passing out parade, the Eastern Regional Minister, Ms Mavis Ama Frimpong urged the Policing Assistants to be agents of change and use the knowledge and skills acquired to help curb social vises such as robbery and riots in the communities.
Ms Frimpong said, the Policing Assistant Programme is one of the many economic and social interventions that have been introduced to help reduce unemployment in the country.
The Regional Director of YEA, Mr Mohammed Pelpou explained that the module of Community Policing Assistance is an important social intervention programme that seeks to alleviate poverty and make the youth gainfully employed.
He noted that, about 22.6 per cent of vibrant populations are the youth, indicating their dominance in the country.
He said the YEA seeks to work with other institutions from the public and private sectors to create jobs for the youth.
Mr Pelpuo advise Ghanaians not to politicise and undermine recruitments made by the agency.
He said YEA is part of government’s social responsibility to ensure that the high rate of unemployment facing the country is minimised.
Mr Pelpou said YEA would be recruiting more than 8,000 youth in the region to occupy every sector by the end of the year.
He urged the unemployed youth to take advantage of the programme by registering.
The Agency he noted would soon introduce a module that would engage the youth on how best to curb illegal mining popularly known as ‘Galamsey’ in the region.