Accra, 0ct 22, GNA - This Year's Annual Young Professionals Transformational Leadership Conference would aim at identifying and producing leaders and generational thinkers to contribute to national development, Mr Andy Osei Okrah President of the Young Professional and Youth Coalition (YPYC) said in Accra. Mr Osei Okrah who was addressing the official launch of the YPYC's of the 2010 Awards ceremony scheduled for Saturday 12 November, said the young professional role models for this year would be awarded where individuals, groups and organizations who had shown positive examples for the youth in the society.

He noted that Andre Dede Ayew, a Black Stars player, would take the male's category, while Mrs. Mawuena Trebarh, Corporate Affairs Manager of the MTN would take the female category.

The two, he said, were selected for their outstanding performance and professionalism exhibited in their respective fields of endeavour. The ceremony, he said, would help build networks, inform, educate, inspire and transform the youth, the society and the nation as a whole. Mr Osei Okrah observed that some of the key challenges confronting the nation included the change of mindset, behaviour, attitudes, and values of young people towards some important issues in the society. He explained that effecting the transition from just blaming governments to a more positive general mentality required a massive paradigm shift with a new set of national values, attitudes and, most importantly, a skill of new leadership and focus which in the long term should culminate into transformational change.

"This is our motherland; our forefathers toiled with their lives and left it for us, so we must maintain and develop it better than we inherited it, for future generations," he said.

Mr Osei Okrah encouraged the youth to desist from the temptation of 'sakawa', armed robbery, and other vices that would mar their lives, adding that they should rather aim at becoming generational thinkers. The Coalition of young professionals aims to bring young people together to focus on national issues.