The Eastern Regional Minister Victor Emmanuel Smith has challenged the country’s youth to grab career opportunities that would make them self-reliant. He said it was part of the many reasons why government introduced the National Youth Employment Programme now the Ghana Youth Employment Development Agency, to offer the youth of Ghana the career path, which will enable them make a bold step into the world of work and guarantee each and everyone’s future and destiny for a better Ghana. Ambassador Smith was addressing the graduation of 3,611 under the GYEDA Youth-in-Vocation Module in the Eastern Regional Capital, Koforidua. The venture is a collaboration between GYEDA and Asongtaba Cottage Industries and Exchange Programme, (ACI&EP) a skills-development non-governmental organization. He said the Youth and Sports Ministry has taken the initiative to promote youth entrepreneurship in the country by initiating the GYEDA Business Proposal Initiative. Individual youth with creative business ideas are selected, trained and setup in businesses with seed fund, logistics and mentored to ensure that the businesses are sustainable and are contributing to the development of the nation. He lauded the management and staff of Asongtaba for collaborating with the GYEDA in the training of the youth especially women in various vocations that lead to their economic independence and future security. The Executive Director of ACI&EP, Henry Kangah disclosed that similar ceremonies have already been held in the Northern and Ashanti regions adding that more will soon follow. He said per the partnership, the role of Asongtaba is to oversee the training of beneficiary youth in various vocations that lead to their economic independence and future security. Mr. Kangah said the Asongtaba team has proven its worth in this regard by engaging the youth in training and their subsequent set-up adding that the Project implementation has been grouped in 4 stages namely including Training, Set-up, Recovery and Microfinance. He said in the Eastern Region alone Asongtaba had engaged 593 master trainers for Dressmaking and 237 for hairdressing and was a clear indication of the number of real job opportunities created by the GYEDA and Asongtaba partnership for the youth and master trainers nationwide. He said Asongtaba will continue to partner GYEDA and demonstrate its commitment to the development of the youth of this country. A Deputy National Coordinator at GYEDA in charge of Human Resource Selassie Attipoe who read a speech on behalf of the National Coordinator stressed the need for a greater partnership between the GYEDA and private companies. He reiterated government’s partnership with the World Bank to further expand the operations of the NYEP to enable more youth benefit from its numerous projects.