Winneba, (C/R) June 20, GNA - Ghana Decent Work Pilot Programme (GDWPP) is organising a five-day intensive Training of Trainers Workshop on poverty alleviation for 20 participants at Winneba. The participants were drawn from Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam and the Awutu-Effutu-Senya Districts in the Central Region, described as financially distressed communities in the southern part of the country.

The ILO-sponsored course forms part of measures initiated jointly by the GDWPP and the Government to salvage the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam and the Awutu-Effutu-Senya administrative areas from abject poverty. Participants, including six women would be equipped with the requisite knowledge and skills for the mobilisation and effective training of business associations in their respective districts to promote the work of small-scale businesses and create employment for the people.

Opening the workshop, Mr Solomon Kwarhie Abam Quaye, District Chief Executive (DCE) for Awutu-Effutu-Senya, advised participants not to allow monetary consideration to overshadow their chances of acquiring adequate knowledge and skills that would enable them to redeem the people from poverty. He pointed out that, participants at workshops and seminars who concentrated more on the financial returns they would derive from such meetings often found it very difficult to put what they have learnt into practice when they returned to their base.

Mr. Quaye said the workshop was dear to the heart of the Government because it would help in replicating the Ghana Decent Work Pilot Programme in other districts in future if officers who have been purposely trained to handle the programme performed creditably.

Mr. Quaye expressed his appreciation to the GDWPP and its parent organisation, the ILO, for organising the workshop and hoped participants would attach great value to it. Mr Kwamina Amoasi Andoh, National Co-ordinator of the GDWPP recalled the history of the GDWPP and asked participants to work hard during the five-day period to equip themselves with the necessary knowledge to facilitate the poverty reduction activities in their respective districts.

He said he has no doubt in his mind that participants at the course would take the course very serious, considering the scrutiny which they passed through before they were selected to represent the two beneficiary districts.

Mr. Peter Morton, General Manager of EMPRETECT Ghana Foundation, and Mr Victor Atta-Amponsah, training manager of Ghana Employers Association are the key resource persons. Mr Henry George Acquah, businessman, who presided, stressed the need for the participants to place the nation above their personal ambitions and do all they could to make the Programme a success.