Bolgatanga, Nov 24, GNA - The National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) models have been able to reduce rural urban migration among the youth in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, Mr Kojo Kopanamo, the Upper East coordinator of the Programme in charge of Upper East Region, said on Wednesday.

He told the GNA that with the introduction and expansion of the NYEP rural urban migration, which was so high in the three northern regions, was reducing.

Mr Kopanamo said majority of the youth, including people in their middle ages who could have migrated to the urban areas, had been engaged by the NYEP.

Under the Community Education Teaching Assistants 2,000 youth had been engaged and 2,000 youth had also been engaged in Youth in Agriculture and have cultivated large acreage of soya beans and maize. He said Craft Pro, a basket weaving component of the NYEP, had also engaged about 3,000 people, especially women, and they are weaving baskets in the entire basket weaving centres in all districts in the Region. Mr Kopanamo said under the Craft Pro, the youth were trained and after that given seed capital and logistics to set up their own businesses and also train others.

Mr Kopanamo said the Sheanut Processing Plant established by the Programme and a private enterprise at Nakolo in the Kassena- Nankana West District had also engaged 1,500 youth especially women. He said the programme had also engaged about 100 people under the Community Protection Assistants programme and also engaged 70 people under mobile phone repairs training programme. Mr Kopanamo said the Upper East Region had also been given a quota of 1,200 to recruit under the Health Extension Workers component, another 750 under the road maintenance component of the NYEP all scheduled to take off soon.