By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Bolgatanga, July 5, GNA – The Widows and Orphans Movement (WOM), an advocacy non-governmental organisation has held a day’s career exposure workshop for young people plying their trade in the informal sector in the Upper Est Region.
The event, organised with funding support from ActionAid Ghana, another NGO, brought together young people from Young Urban Women Movement (YUWM) and Activista, two youth groups under the auspices of the organisations.
The event which brought resource persons from state institution, Ghana Enterprise Agency, was to expose the youth in the region to good behaviour and attitudes that would enable them to pursue their chosen trade and complete successfully.
Some private entrepreneurs such as welders, electricians and barbers, also shared their business journeys with the youth to further inspire and expose them, especially those who had also completed their apprenticeship trainings, to innovative measures they could employ to start their businesses.
Ms Fati Abigail Abdulai, the Executive Director of WOM on the sidelines of the workshop told the Ghana News Agency that the career exposure was necessary to inspire the youth to be determined to succeed in their chosen careers in the informal sector.
She said the main goal was to assist young people to be gainfully employed which would contribute to reducing the national unemployment rate, dependency level of the youth and help achieve sustainable youth empowerment.
Ms Abdulai explained that over the years her outfit and its partners had been working with the youth to address some of the abuses in the informal sector to ensure that apprentices had a friendly environment to learn their trades.
“Due to the works, we have done over the years, the youth are becoming aware of their rights but then there are some attitudinal issues that we need to start addressing because the youth keep complaining that there are no jobs, and the trainers are not treating them well.
“However, the trainers are also saying that the youth are lazy and do not want to learn and want quick money. So, we are looking at how to bridge the gap and ensure that our youth are gainfully employed or stay in the trades that they have chosen to learn and that they are completing the process and are earning income,” she said.
The Executive Director noted that there were limited job opportunities in the formal sector and therefore it was necessary to encourage the youth to pursue careers in the informal sector, especially technical and vocational fields.
“This platform is to also to let the youth know that sometimes the informal sector is more lucrative than the formal sector because if you are a mason and you are getting GH₵100.00 per
day which is the current rate, you will be getting GHS 2,000.00 a month and not many graduates are earning such amount in a month,” she added.
Mr Jacob Avogo, a welder who is into the manufacturing of trailers and farm implements among others, indicated that self-determination was key to building a successful business and encouraged the youth to invest the little they had into the trade they had learnt.
Some of the youth expressed gratitude to WOM and ActionAid Ghana for the support over the years and noted apart from helping them to address some of the human rights abuses they suffered at workplaces, the career exposure workshop had offered them the opportunity to learn to become successful in future.
Ms Dorcas Zoogah, one of the participants, noted that she had been inspired by the stories of the resource people who shared their challenges at the early stages of their businesses and urged her colleagues to learn from their experiences.
GNA