By Mercy Arthur
Tema July 6, GNA — The SOS Children’s Villages in Ghana has hosted its ninth life skills and career orientation boot camp for the 2025 Junior High School graduates in Tema.
The five-day programme was held on the theme: “Helping Young People Develop the Relevant Skills for Their Career Path.”
Eighty-five young people from across the country, including those in the Northern, Ashanti, Eastern, Central, and Greater Accra Regions, participated in the boot camp.
Mr Godknows Kporha, the National Youth Development Advisor for SOS Children’s Villages Ghana, said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) during the programme that the organisation’s commitment was to empower young people in the SOS programme within the country to be self-employed.
Mr Kporha said the organisation had strategic interventions to empower young people before the completion of university with the aim of being self-reliant, competitive in the job market and creating their own jobs.
He added that the organisation often hosted boot camps for young ones annually, which were divided into three categories: life skills and career orientation for junior high school graduates, career planning and development for senior high school graduates and employability and entrepreneurship skills development for tertiary graduates.
Mr Kporha stressed that the boot camp was held to help young people understand the reality of life and properly orient them to choose courses or career paths that align with their interests and capacity to achieve their goals.
The participants were educated in various sessions covering career planning and development, gender equality and stereotypes, environmental awareness and sustainability, among others.
He indicated that the project, for the past nine years, had been positive for young ones who participated, with results of confidence development and the creation of their own jobs with skills acquired from the boot camps.
Mr Kporha emphasised that the organisation partnered with learning organisations, future carreers, DHL and other individual facilitators to organise the camp.
He called on individuals, corporate bodies and philanthropists to help fund the programme for the young ones, within their respective locations to ease transportation costs, to enable them to acquire better skills needed in the corporate fields.
He advised young people to associate themselves with people who could help them positively and also identify role models to guide them through mentorship programmes.
Mr Kporha urged parents to study their children’s and support them to build capacity in their areas of interest.
The facilitators advised the participants to be of good behaviour, abstain from sex and study hard for a better future.
The participants expressed gratitude to the organisation for the boot camp, promising to adhere to the advice and teachings on the various fields of study during the engagement.
The five-day boot camp ended with an award ceremony for some participants based on various categories, such as most behaved location and most engaging participants, among others, and an educational trip to the Tema Harbour.
GNA
Edited by Laudia Sawer/Christian Akorlie