HUNDRED YOUTH ACQUIRE SKILLS

ONE hundred youth engaged under the National Youth Authority’s (NYA)’s range poultry project have graduated after undergoing a four-week intensive training in free range broiler poultry production.

The youth, drawn from the 10 regions, also underwent tutorials in housing management, disease and pest control and marketing at the Youth Leadership and Skills Training Institute at Afienya in the Dangme West District in the Greater Accra Region.

According to the National Co-ordinator of the NYA, Ms Sedina Tamakloe-Ationu, the programme, a joint partnership between the NYA and Tycriss Livestock Farms, was targeted at meeting the increasing annual poultry supply deficit.

It was also intended to equip the youth with entrepreneurial skills, while recognising the government’s desire to increase private sector participation in its development agenda.

According to Ms Tamakloe-Ationu, the project was informed by the increasing joblessness and deprivation that had continued to plague the youth across the African continent, with Ghana not being an exception.

That, she said, had become the prime concern expressed by the youth and community leaders who had called for an economic policy focus that could generate employment and assuage the despondency of rural youths.

“It is in this light that the NYA, on refocusing its mandate and service delivery, has chosen to shore up impetus for employment generation, with emphasis on transforming the agricultural sector which has become an area of stagnation among the youth,” she said.

She further explained that the primary focus for the introduction of the project was to raise the status of agriculture as a national priority geared towards overcoming the youth unemployment menace.

Ms Tamakloe-Ationu announced that the NYA intended to extend the project to four regions by the first quarter of 2012, in line with its strategy to achieve the one million-bird target in the next three years.

She gave an indication that the authority was determined to re-engineer the curricula of the Western and Volta Regional Youth Leadership Training centres through the provision of machinery and equipment in order to feed into the oil industry and called for financial support from the public and private sectors towards the achievement of the set goals.

The Volta Regional Minister, Mr Joseph Amenowode, who delivered the keynote address on behalf of the Minister of Youth and Sports, indicated that officials were not oblivious of the consequences of the failure to secure satisfactory employment on completion of school or acquiring skill training.

“The intense frustration, despair and alienation are enough to trigger problems of physical and mental health and may also lead to social ills, including drug and substance abuse, violence, robbery, among others,” Mr Amenowode said.

While lauding the NYA and Tycriss Farms for the initiative, the minister called for collaboration to move beyond training to youth wealth creation in agri-business and its related opportunities.

The Chief Executive Officer of Tycriss Livestock Farms, Mr Nicholas Attiogbe, for his part, noted that his outfit decided to partner the NYA in line with its objective to assist institutions and individuals, with a precise focus on the youth, in poultry production as a means to increase economic activities in the country.

“We believe the partnership provides a valuable opportunity for the youth to be self-sufficient, economically stable and trained in a particular field that can become a main source of employment,” he said.

He expressed the hope that the graduands would go out to create opportunities for themselves from the knowledge and skills acquired from their training.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Dec 20, 2011