Green Economy Ghana is on a mission to integrate young people and vulnerable groups into the labour markets by offering technical and entrepreneurial training on plastic waste management, organic waste management and sustainable forestry to 400 young people (mainly women).

These three training sessions will be held at its partner Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) centres in Kumasi, Koforidua and Accra.

The first cohort of 200 students was selected out of about 1,000 candidates who had applied to be part of the training programmes.

These young people would be provided with theoretical and practical training and apprenticeship opportunities with businesses in those value chains and will be supported with job searches and business development services.

In parallel to these activities, the project will also facilitate the organization of Public-Private Dialogue sessions and collaborations between Swedish and Ghanaian companies and public institutions to develop the green and circular economy in Ghana.

In order to provide the best learning experience, the Green Economy Ghana project has partnered with experts from Ghana and Scandinavia to develop the content and process of the training programmes.

Earlier in November, the project organised three Training of Trainer (ToT) sessions for 26 trainers from TVETs centres and Business Support Organisations, who will be responsible for providing practical and theoretical training to the selected 200 students in the coming months and to another 200 students in 2022.

The ToT under sustainable forestry was held at the Forest Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), Fumesua in Kumasi. The facilitators of the session, Dr Elizabeth Obeng, Dr Kwame Oduro and Dr John Mensah took the eight trainers through all the five modules and four specialisations under sustainable forestry.

Practical presentations on mushroom production, seedling and seed production, snail production, and briquettes production were taught during the training days.

In Koforidua, Dr Ted Annan from Koforidua Technical University trained eight persons on organic waste management on topics like composting and briquette production.

Jones Amartefio of Eastern Tech Hub, one of the capacitated trainers, expressed his gratitude and said "this was a practical learning that would equip young people with skills and jobs in compost production and encourage young people who will undergo training to be committed and learn the relevant skills for job and business creation."

The Accra ToT session was facilitated by Dr Daniel Nukpezah and 10 trainers were equipped with practical skills and theoretical knowledge in the plastic waste management sector. The topics covered range from types of plastics, processes and tools for plastic recycling and business opportunities in plastic waste management.

The European Union Archipelago Programme is a four-year programme, funded by the European Union Emergency Trust Fund (EUTF), whose main objective is to strengthen the employability of young people in supporting them in job creation in the Sahel and Lake Chad countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritanian, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal).

The project is being implemented by a five-member consortium including Inclusive Business Sweden as the lead, YMCA Ghana, Social Enterprise Ghana, Ghana Sweden Chamber of Commerce and Sweden West Africa Business Association as associate members.