The Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi, will be a beehive of activities among the youthful population seeking to land jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities this Thursday and Friday.

The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) partners with SNV International to host Ashanti's maiden Regional Job Fair.

This Jobs and Entrepreneurship Pitch session is the third in a series of the Regional Fairs earmarked by the Agency to climax the launch of the maiden Job Fair held in September this year in Accra.

Dubbed Jobs Career and Entrepreneurship Fair, the two-day event is scheduled to occur on November 4 and November 5, 2021, at the Prempeh Assembly Hall in Kumasi from 7 am to 5 pm each day.

The Fair, anchored on the theme 'Bridging the Job Gap in Partnership with the Private Sector', seeks to bring business owners and companies with declared vacancies together with the youth (both graduates and non-graduates) seeking to land jobs.

Again persons with viable business ideas or proposals shall be taken through an Entrepreneurship Pitching where viable proposals will be given the necessary financial and technical support or both.

There will be Resource persons to take participants, start-ups, and job seekers through Career Guidance, Capacity Building, and entrepreneurship Pitch contest.

There will also be live recruitment for the declared vacancies and Job Matching to supplement the Career sessions.

All participants are required to register while prospective entrepreneurs are expected to register with their business ideas and proposals at the Fair.

The COVID-19 Safety and Preventive Protocols will be strictly observed owing to the anticipated number of people likely to converge on the venue.

As a result, the Agency will manage the activities by holding the event in sessions to avoid overcrowding with the social distancing protocol in mind.

Following the assurance for participation, about one hundred companies and businesses have declared over 700 job vacancies to be filled at the Fair.

The Ashanti Regional YEA Director Seth Twumasi noted that the Fair will no doubt attract a large number of the youth in attendance, owing to the region being the second most populous in the country.

He expressed the hope that the Fair will serve as a turning point for the youth who will attend with the lucky ones filling the vacancies available.

He was also optimistic that the number of youth with business ideas will sail through the entrepreneurial pitch successfully to receive the necessary support to engage other job seekers.

He prayed that businesses that are participating in the Fair shall meet their human resource needs and likewise prospective entrepreneurs to also meet their job needs.

To that end, he called on all businesses and job seekers to help create an enabling environment before, during, and after the Fair and make this great history together.

He finally called on all stakeholders who are interested in jobs and jobs creation to make their way to the two–day event.