Over 692,000 young people are set to benefit from the COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Programme (CoRe)launched by the Springboard Road Show in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation and Solidaridad.

The programme, which seeks to support young people in the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, is designed to provide support through e-mentoring, e-counselling and e-coaching to equip them with relevant skills.

It will enable them to survive and thrive during and after the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants were expected to be drawn from both the formal and informal sectors.

The CoRe programme, which will run from June to November, 2020, will provide support to the beneficiaries in areas such as; building resilience; health awareness; wellness and safety; building relevant workplace skills and job readiness in a post-pandemic era.

It will also involve weekly radio and online mentoring sessions in English and various Ghanaian languages and counseling for the beneficiaries.

Mrs Comfort Ocran, the Executive Director of the Springboard Road Show speaking at the virtual launch of the programme, said the programme was an extension of the work the Springboard Road Show Foundation was doing with young people through the Springboard Road Show and the Virtual University in the past 14 years.

She said the COVID-19 pandemic had made it imperative to have an intervention of this nature.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is probably the biggest disruption to our way of life in living history,” she said.

The Executive Director said the negative impact of the pandemic cut across social, cultural, psychological, economic, financial and every other aspect of human life, hence the need to introduce such a programme to support the young ones.

Ms Nathalie Akon Gabala, the Regional Director, West, Central and Northern Africa for MasterCard Foundation, said the Foundation was working on the continent for over a decade to increase access to education and financial services and in the wake of COVID-19, it was clear that it needed to step up its game on the continent to address the pandemic.

“Our aim is to create dignified work for young people and we have an objective of creating 30 million jobs for young women and young Africans over the next 10 years,” she said.

Mr Bossman Owusu, the Acting Country Director of Solidaridad, said the programme sought to provide counselling for young people to cope with the stress and anxiety brought by COVID-19.

“It gets to that point where we need to provide that counselling to help them to cope with the stress and anxiety brought by COVID-19. The programme, therefore, has the back of young people who have put in efforts to support agriculture”.