Kumbungu (N/R), Aug. 22, GNA - Mrs Mary Carlin Yates, United States Ambassador in Ghana on Thursday, commissioned a 250,000-dollar food security and nutrition training centre, the first of its kind in the Northern Region at Kumbungu.

The facility, "The Reverend Leon H. Sullivan Food Security and Nutrition Centre," is a collaborative effort between the United States and the Opportunities Industrialisation Centre (OIC) Ghana to improve food security and reduce malnutrition in the Northern Region. Ambassador Yates noted that food security could not be fully addressed without economic empowerment.

She said the centre would help provide the required human and infrastructure resources for growing more food, reducing post-harvest losses, improving nutritional status and micro-enterprise activities. It would also be used to train other development extension workers in the three Northern Regions, she added. The Centre has a Rural Community Computer Unit to promote learning, research and networking with other organizations through Internet connectivity.

Mrs Yates said the US had supported agro-forestry, agricultural production, small and micro-enterprises; primary education, sanitation and primary health care programmes and activities.

She said US provides approximately 18 million dollars in direct food aid to the country each year to support the government's efforts in addressing food insecurity in the country and in promoting sustainable economic growth.

The Centre, which is located on a 16-acre land donated by the Chief and people of Kumbungu, has facilities to accommodate farmers and resource persons; an auditorium, office; kitchen and dining complex, as well as demonstration farms and a bee-keeping site.

In a speech read for him, Mr William D. Opare, Board Chairman of OIC Ghana, said the goal of the organisation is to contribute towards the generation of wealth by Ghanaian youth through the provision of marketable vocational and entrepreneurial skills.

He said to achieve this goal, OICG provides skills for school leavers and dropouts and non-literates who usually fall outside the mainstream formal education system.

The organization, he said also counsel and provide business extension services for self-employment and training in food security in vulnerable area.

Mr Opare said currently, OICG was operating three vocational training centres in Accra, Kumasi and Sekondi/Takoradi, and in collaboration with OIC International has since 1999, implemented new programmes sponsored by the United States Aid agencies.

These include the food security initiative at Tamale, the poverty alleviation and improvement project implementation in Ashanti and Western Regions and the cooperative and market access development of the African Trade Investment Programme in the Greater Accra Region. Mr Opare said there were plans to open OIC centres at Kpando in the Volta Region, and Cape Coast in the Central Region.

Madam Carla Dernizard, OIC Country Director for Ghana, said OIC International is a United States-based non-profit NGO, founded by the Late Rev. (Dr) Leon H. Sullivan, which had been working in the country since 1971.

She said it had been providing vocational training, job placement and in recent times, entrepreneurship training for under-privileged youth.

Madam Dernizard said OICG's vision is to be leader committed to empowering the poor and vulnerable through the provision of sustainable self-help initiatives in Northern Region.

The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr Charles Bintim, said food security was a priority area that the region was fighting to achieve, adding that, post-harvest losses was a major problem in the area.

He urged chiefs, opinion leaders and the youth to strive to maintain peace, saying, "there is the need to give peace a chance in this region to ensure that all the interventions to promote socio-economic development achieve the expected goal".

Among the large gathering at the commissioning were the Kumbun-Na Alhaji Iddrisu Abu, paramount chief and Alhaji Mohammad Mumuni, MP for the area.