Walewale (Northern Region), Nov, '98 - Mr Karimu Nachiana, district chief executive for West Mamprusi, has identified mass unemployment among junior and senior secondary school graduates as the biggest problem facing the district assembly.

The majority of these unemployed youth are girls most of whom end up being teenage mothers without any vocational training to earn them a decent living.

Mr Nachina made the observation at the close of a two-week technical skills training workshop in batik, tie and dye production for 30 unemployed youth at Walewale over the weekend.

It was organised by the Tamale business advisory centre of the National Board for Small Industries (Bac/NBSSI) and sponsored by the German Development Service. It was under the theme: ''Preparing men and women and the youth towards self- employment as a parallel strategy towards poverty alleviation''.

Mr Nachina said the workshop was a strategy to get trainees to settle down in their localities to fend for themselves and not migrate to the urban areas.

"For us in the assembly, we shall try and get the group that has been trained well organised so that credit can be extended to them under the assembly's poverty alleviation scheme which will soon start,'' he said.

Mr Nachina said the success of the group will encourage the assembly to invite the course organisers to provide training for more people.

Mr George Agyei Anim, acting head of the BAC, said since the two major problems facing business start-ups were access to finance and markets, he was glad to learn that the district assembly intended to extend credit to the trainees under its poverty alleviation programme.

He called on the public to patronise made-in-Ghana goods to help create bigger markets to stimulate production and economic development.