Communities asked to assist National Services Persons

Accra, Aug 20, GNA - Mr Boniface Gambila, Director of the National Service Scheme, on Friday asked communities national service persons are posted to support them with accommodation and other assistance. He said community involvement in creating favourable working conditions for service persons would encourage them to accept postings to rural areas.

The Director was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at a Workshop on Service Learning organised by the National Service Secretariat, in Accra.

The workshop on the theme, "Youth Voices in the Development of Service-Learning Programs" was aimed at providing a platform for the participants from Ghana, Canada and the United States to share experiences on youth volunteer service.

It also served as a preliminary meeting to the one-week 7th Global International Association for National Youth Service conference, which would open in Accra on August 23, this year.

Mr Gambila said the secretariat's financial and logistic constraint did not promote the effective running of the Scheme. "Monitoring and supervision of the scheme is difficult because of inadequate logistics and finance," he said.

According to him, the burden on the secretariat's budget would reduce when communities embraced the idea of sponsoring service persons through their service period.

He said the Conference would assess the impact of national service on communities and seek ways to encourage voluntary service among the youth.

It would be attend by delegates from Africa and other parts of the world.