Accra, Jan. 20, GNA - Government on Thursday launched a job creation project aimed at engaging hundreds of unemployed youth across the country.

The Government through the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) and the National Youth Council (NYC) is undertaking the Youth Enterprise and Skills Development Centre (YESDEC) programme, in collaboration with the management of Zoomlion Ghana Limited. It is to equip the unemployed youth with the relevant knowledge, attitudinal and entrepreneurial skills to propel and sustain an effective economic and industrial transformation of the economy. The focus of the project is Agro-processing, Manufacturing, Services and Environmental Sanitation. The sustainable micro business project is expected to engage over 40,000 unemployed youth including beneficiaries of the NYEP who are exiting after their tenure.

NYEP Coordinator, Mr Abuga Pele, said the public-private initiative would encourage and afford the youth of Ghana an opportunity to create wealth and participate in national development. He said recruiting young people and putting them on the payroll could not be sustained in future, adding "This is a legacy we can leave as a nation for our young and up-coming youth." Ms Akua Sena Dansua, Out-going Minister of Youth and Sports said over 97,000 youths were currently engaged in various programmes such as Youth in Film Production, Grasscutter rearing, Airport Assistants and Community Police.

She expressed the hope that the YESDEC-NYEP Module would complement Government's efforts aimed at creating direct employment for 750,000 youths through a four-year period, 2010-2013. Coordinator of YESDEC, Mavis Yamoah, said the project was targeting the setting up of micro businesses for 1,000 youths throughout the country by the end of 2011.

She said the YESDEC project had so far trained and assisted over 200 youths to successfully set up new businesses. Ms Yamoah said key areas of training were simple logistics, transportation of foodstuffs from farm gates to commercial or market centres, agro-processing and packaging, water tanker delivery services in water deprived communities and machine shop enterprise. Others are ICT support centres, block construction, catering services and garment and beauty care enterprises.

The trainees have the opportunity to own the equipment and would be supported to payback through the various banks in instalments over a two-year period.

The YESDEC Programme's main objective is to facilitate the acquisition of entrepreneurial, technical and specialised skills by the youth to enable them to establish and effectively manage their own micro and small businesses.

According to the initiators, YESDEC is a timely intervention designed to benefit not only those exiting from the Waste and Sanitation module but all other modules of the NYEP. 20 Jan. 11