Cape Coast, Sept. 10, GNA – The Central Regional Office of the Centre for National Culture (CNC) has held its fifth ‘CARL OPAREBEA marketable skill training’ graduation with a call on the graduands to use their skills and knowledge to make positive change in the society.
The Acting Director of the Centre, Mrs Dorcas Salamatu Alhassan who made the call, underscored the need for them to be resourceful and innovative to create jobs for themselves and others.
In all, 122 students including 14 persons with disabilities, graduated after a one-month intensive training and were awarded certificates of participation.
They were trained in beads making, Basic dressmaking, floral and interior decorations, bags, sandals making, fascinators and makeovers.
The ceremony was on the theme: “creating positive linkages between stakeholders, generating synergy, and maximizing the benefit of the limited resources available to the creative arts industry”.
Mrs Alhassan, said the training was part of the CNC’s social responsibility to help the youth have employable skills to enable them contribute towards the development of the nation.
It was also to engage the youth in skilful productive venture to help reduce the high rate of social vices such as prostitution, armed robbery, and also teenage pregnancies destroying the future of most idle youths.
“We are trying to give them alternatives, because most of them get exposed to the ills of society, some lose their lives on the streets, others get raped, so it is important to get them out of the street by giving them an alternative source of livelihood, which is the skills training they have acquired,” she indicated.
Mrs Justina Marigold Assan, the Regional Minister, stated that it was imperative to empower the youth economically through livelihood skills training to enhance their opportunities to generate income to transform lives.
She noted that entrepreneurial skills was crucial for everyone to acquire as it could be a life changing experience in relation to wealth creation.
Mrs Assan implored all to take advantage of such opportunities to acquire the requisite knowledge and skills to establish their enterprises to be self dependent.
She asked the beneficiaries to make good use of the knowledge and skills acquired to derive the needed benefit and contribute to enhancing the development of their communities.
The Minister lauded CARL OPAREBEA, a former director of the Centre, for initiating the program which would bring positive changes to the lives of the youth and plegded her commitment to support them whenever the need arose.
Madam Janet Edna Nyame, the Executive Director of the National Commission on Culture, said the training was a life changing initiative, necessary to economically position the beneficiaries, and charged them to put the skills acquired to good use.
She called on the trainees to apply the good management skills in their transactions to help them grow their businesses to maximise profit to enhance their lots.
Ms Rebecca Ayim-Mensah, Head of Visual Arts Department of the CNC and a facilitator of the training, emphasised the importance of such programmes to curb the unemployment situation and eradicating poverty from homes.
She said one major problem that people faced after they had undergone livelihood empowerment skills training was start-up capital.
Ms Eyim-Mensah, therefore, called on stakeholders to support the trainees with some tools and also help the creative arts industry to develop.
Nana Efua Dawson, a beneficiary, who expressed appreciation on behalf of her colleagues stated that they would make good use of the skills acquired, and demonstrated what she has learnt.
She told the GNA that being self-reliant would help minimize the incidence of unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and early parenthood.
GNA