Mr. Theophilus Tetteh Chaie, Ablekuma Central Member of Parliament (MP), has said poverty alleviation is about adopting pragmatic policies and programmes to empower the youth and assisting the unemployed to find gainful employment.

“Every MP is capable of reducing poverty drastically, provided that national issues such as health and education are discussed dispassionately without introducing politics,” he said.

The MP said this at the weekend when he donated GH¢1,000 and 13 sewing machines at the cost of GH¢3,250 to graduates of the Ghana National Tailors and Dressmakers Association after they had successfully completed their apprenticeship in dressmaking.

Mr. Chaie, said there was the need for every Ghanaian to take advantage of the Local Enterprise and Skills Development Programme (LESDEP) to acquire vocations that would make them economically self-sustaining.

He said vocational and technical education had emerged as one of the best strategies that any nation needed to develop and reduce poverty.

The MP told the newly trained tailors and dressmakers that “you don’t need to be academicians before you can progress in life, but you have to look at the prevailing opportunities and conditions to create jobs for yourself.”

He advised parents not to give up when their children could not meet the necessary grades to pursue higher academic programmes but encourage them to seize any opportunity in the country to become self-sufficient.

Mr. Chaie gave the assurance that the government was prepared to assist technical and vocational institutions to provide skills training for the youth to make them self-reliant.

He said he was happy to contribute towards the future development of the 13 young women and asked them to be proud of the vocation they had chosen.

Mr. Addo Biney, Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Ghana National Tailors and Dressmakers Association, commended the MP for investing heavily in the programme to provide employable skills to the people.

He said anybody who would see tailoring and dressmaking as an obstacle to progress in life was deceiving himself, and advised the graduates to endeavor to render quality services to their clients and attract more customers.**