Some 51 young persons in Lower Manya Krobo in the Eastern Region have, under an ‘employment, entrepreneurship and volunteerism opportunity summit,’ received training in entrepreneurship, employment, and volunteerism opportunities.

The summit organized by the National Youth Authority, brought together youth parliamentarians and young entrepreneurs who had already undergone NYA organized workshops in entrepreneurship together with others from the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) and the National Board of Small Scale Industries (NBSSI).

Explaining the rationale behind the training, Acting Municipal Director of the National Youth Authority, Miss Luyusa Akilu Mohammed Zabado said the summit targeted some young entrepreneurs who had already received training from the National Youth Authority in detergent making, hand sanitizer, Dettol, shower gel making together with others drawn from various youth agencies.

The Acting Director said the summit did not only help the young entrepreneurs to properly manage their businesses and their funds but also directed them to appropriate avenues to seek scholarships to access higher education, as well as exposed them to various employment opportunities.

According to Miss Luyusa Akilu Mohammed Zabado, the summit was aimed at empowering young people to take responsibility for their personal and professional future through creating and developing their own business plans to achieve financial independence.

The young entrepreneurs, together with the others benefitted from the entrepreneurial skills training in response to the growing unemployment among the nation’s youth as it would afford the unemployed the opportunity to create jobs for themselves and others.

Metropolitan Head of the National Board of Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), Mr. Daniel Owusu Ansah who was part of a team of facilitators assembled to share insight into job opportunities observed that unemployed young people were better off setting up their own businesses instead of the crave for unavailable white colour jobs.

To realize this, he took the participants through identifying entrepreneurship opportunities and the strategies of setting up personal businesses and the areas of business operations, as well as the importance of being self-employed.

Other topics included the characteristics of entrepreneurship, types of businesses that exist, innovation, creativity, types of businesses, formalization and support, types of workers, etc.

CEO and co-founder of Global-360 Consult, Bernice Adu-Boahen also shared insight into access to credible scholarship opportunities and winning scholarships for the trainees.

She identified the inaccessibility of eligible global opportunities, the lack of in-depth knowledge about available opportunities, the unavailability of mentors or coaches in undertaking or accessing opportunities, time constraint, the complexity of comprehending opportunities and scammers as hindrances that prevent young people from accessing scholarship opportunities.

The CEO and co-founder of Global-360 Consult said while many young job seekers are anxious to get employed in one firm or the other, petty mistakes such as lack of reading, lack of proper planning, poor documentation, copy and paste (plagiarism) of Statement of Purpose/Motivational Letters, the use of ‘agents’, poor CV outline, lack of focus and reliance on hearsay, have proven to be the undoing of these applicants in obtaining scholarship opportunities.

To solve these challenges, Miss Adu-Boahen avers that extensive reading, proper CV preparation, proper communication, good and genuine documentation coupled with good planning amongst others, were reliable ways to secure scholarship opportunities.

On his part, branch manager of GLICO Jobs and Insurance, Akosombo Branch, Daniel Gyamfi took the participants through the modalities of insurance, enlightened them on the various insurance packages as well as how to make money through working.

District Director of the National Youth Authority at Fanteakwa, Abdul Razak Masawud while explaining the functions of the National Youth Volunteerism Corps whipped up the interest of volunteerism and nationalism in the youth through sacrificing to serve and build the country without expecting monetary gains in return.

Municipal Chief Executive for Lower Manya Krobo, Simon Kweku Tetteh was confident that the training would financially empower the youth to enable them to be self-sustainable.

He urged the beneficiaries to continue to acquire more knowledge on their various businesses to achieve better results.

Mr. Tetteh urged the trainees to take advantage of the knowledge acquired to improve on their businesses.