Accra Aug 10, GNA – The second national conference for Professional Cosmetologists and Beauty Therapists has opened in Accra with a call on practitioners to aspire to seek advance learning in the field.
The three-day conference, organised by the Professional Cosmetologists and Beauty Therapists Association of Ghana (P-CABAG), is on the theme “Accelerating the entrepreneurial and leadership potential in cosmetology in cosmetology.”
Alhaji Saeed Bawah Moomen, President, Association of Small-Scale Industries, (ASSI) said “the Cosmetology industry has come a long way and has made a name for itself in the industry, but practitioners have a responsibility to discover themselves, know what they are worth, and make an effort to improve upon themselves.”
He said some beauticians still condemned advance learning as a waste of time but as the industry advanced, stakeholders were expected to live in line with the growing trends and technology.
He said the theme for the conference was appropriate since practitioners had the potential to develop and must always challenge themselves and push beyond self-imposed limits.
The President said “you have more potentials than you think, but you will never know your full potential unless you keep challenging yourself and pushing beyond your own self-imposed limits. The choices you make now, the people you surround yourselves with, all have the potential to affect your life forever.”
Alhaji Moomen urged practitioners to take their businesses serious, nurture their nature, understand their values and strengths, and apply them to their work.
Ms Rebecca Donkor, an Entrepreneur and TVET Ambassador, said there was the need for practitioners to see themselves as entrepreneurs to accelerate the potentials they had.
She said as professionals and entrepreneurs it was important to possess certain values to accelerate their potentials.
“As entrepreneurs, you must build your capacity, seek professional advice, make your customers your priority, be innovative, set goals and objectives for yourself, build stronger relationship with stakeholders and recruit the best people to work for you.”
Ms Donkor encouraged them not to be ignorant about trends in the industry, not to be bossy and too comfortable, see their employees as assets and not liabilities and always learn how to promote their businesses.
Mr King David Thompson, President, P-CABAG said the conference was aimed at creating a platform for excellence in skills delivery and to make the profession more attractive.
He said the theme for the conference was carefully chosen to forcefully drum home the important position of cosmetologists and beauty therapists in the national development agenda.
He said it was unfortunate that as a country, “we have still not recognised the important role professionals play in the equation of quality skill delivery and have also not been bold enough to walk the talk on quality skill delivery.”
Mr Thompson said, “we have sadly reduced professionalism to political football, failed to tackle head-on the issue of health and safety that may affect the output of some professionals, and regulators have failed to provide the needed checks on unqualified practitioners that will make the work of professionals easy and successful.”
GNA