By Yussif Ibrahim, GNA
Obuasi (Ash), July 20, GNA – Mama Love Foundation, an Obuasi-based Non- Governmental Organisation, has organised a skills development training for over 300 students of the Obuasi campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
The training, which was put together under the “train the hand initiative” of the foundation, sought to empower the students with alternative skills to make them self-reliant and employable after graduating from school.
They were trained in soap making, yoghurt making, fascinators, shower gel production, pizza, pie making, among others.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service, 25 per cent of young people between the ages of 15–35 were not in employment, education, or training across the three quarters of 2022.
The Service also indicated that about 1.76 million people were unemployed in the third quarter of 2022, and two out of every three unemployed people were female. Prior to this, data on Ghana’s youth unemployment fluctuated from six per cent to 13 per cent between 2016 and 2021.
Dr. Love Konadu, President of the Foundation, addressing the media after the training, said the focus of the Foundation was on how to empower students considering the difficulties in securing jobs after school.
She said the organisation since 2017 had trained more than 1000 people, equipped them with the skills to be self-employed and self-reliant.
According to her, finding white-collar job had increasingly become an arduous task for many Ghanaians, hence the need to equip the youth with skills that could propel them to start their own businesses.
She said governments the world over had resorted to equipping the youth with employable skills to run their own businesses and not rely on government for jobs.
“This is what has motivated Mama Love Foundation to conduct this training for students of KNUST-Obuasi campus which is the only tertiary institution in Obuasi,” she observed.
She advised the participants to take the skills acquired from the training seriously to set up their own businesses even while at school.
GNA