Over 500 youth have benefited from the "Providing employment for young people in Ghana" initiative spearheaded by ActionAid Ghana.

The programme is targeted at giving the necessary training to young people between the ages of 18 and 35 in the Northern parts of the country, equipping them with entrepreneurial skills in a bid to curb the issue of unemployment in Ghana.

In pursuit of ActionAid Ghana’s Mission Priority to address the root causes of violence against women and girls, reduce unpaid care work and promote decent work, the organisation secured funding from the Medicor Foundation in the Liechtenstein to implement the project.

The aim of the project is to equip young people in four districts (Asutifi North, Mion, Sagnarigu and Talensi) in the Northern, Upper East and the Brong Ahafo Regions.

The project is targeted at 531 young people (362 females and 169 males) who were selected with the support of key stakeholder institutions such as Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), formerly National Board for Small Scale Industries and National Vocational and Technical Institutes.

Beneficiaries were given the opportunity to assess various economically viable trades before selecting their preferred vocational skills training. In all, 12 different trade areas including catering, soap making, and tiling were selected.    

Speaking at a National Youth Forum, Head of Programmes, Campaigns and Innovations at ActionAid, John Nkaw intimated that the programme has been implemented to complement government’s efforts to curb unemployment in Ghana.

“Basically the purpose is to be able to contribute to government’s effort at addressing unemployment, and we do know that statistics show that in 202 unemployment in Ghana stood at 12% which is way above the sub-Saharan African average of 7%. Therefore having trained people on livelihood skills including, clothing, textiles weaving, soap making, and so on and so forth we have been able to build the capacity over 500 young people and given them business advisory skills.”

Some beneficiaries of the programmes told Joy Business that, the proceeds from the skills acquired have aided their livelihoods.

“Because of ActionAid, now I can use my own hands to do some things that will help me and it has helped me a lot because all these things I’m doing it has helped me to gather some money to pay my school fees and other things”, one beneficiary said.

Another beneficiary stated that, “I have three 3children whose fees I have to pay but because of this skills I’ve acquired, I’m able to pay the fees and feed them as well”.

ActionAid works in over 45 countries with over 15 million people worldwide.

In Ghana, ActionAid works in the Upper East, Upper West, North- East, Savannah, Northern, Bono East, Bono, Ahafo, Oti, Volta and Greater Accra regions. This represents 11 out of Ghana’s 16 regions.