Ho MCE Urges Youth to Acquire Skills

By Alberto Mario Noretti

Ho — The Ho Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr John Nelson Akorli, has called on idle and jobless young people to wake from their slumber, and acquire hands-on skills, to earn a living.

He said that there were bright jobs prospects for people with such skills in the contemporary Ghanaian society, for which reason there was no need looking up to government all the time for jobs in the formal sector.

Mr Akorli was speaking at a durbar held at the weekend at the Ho Children's Park by the Youth Alive Artisans' Association, to mark its 10th anniversary.

The MCE said that the country's development objective required the roles of carpenters, builders, mechanics and various practical skills.

For that reason, government was committing greater zeal and resources to technical and vocational training, to rapidly facilitate national building projects, he pointed out.

The MCE also mentioned large scale fruit cultivation as one lucrative area which the youth could venture into and earn a comfortable living.

Mr Akorli commended members of the association for the value they attached to their vocations, saying it was only when they remained united as a group that they would grow from strength to strength, identify and effectively address the challenges facing their industries.

Earlier, Mr Charles Kwesi Gomenu, Ho Municipal Director of the National Youth Authority (NYA), said that unemployment was a global phenomenon and not peculiar to Ghana alone.

It was, therefore, proper for the youth to make conscious and sustained efforts to acquire employable skills, not only in the formal sector but in the informal sector as well.

Mr Gomenu gave the assurance that the NYA would continue to support young people, including school drop-outs and pregnant teenagers with the necessary artisanal skills, so that they could earn decent incomes.

Mr Emmanuel Abuku, secretary of the association, said that the vision of the group was to help young people who could not afford formal education, to undergo training and acquire artisanal skills, to become self-employed and employers.

"By so doing, the association is helping government to rid the streets of unemployed youth," he said.

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