A total of 160 youth are undergoing technical and vocational training in different courses including wielding and fabrication, masonry, plumbing and electrical in mining communities at New Abirem in the Eastern Region.
It is under the auspices of Newmont Akyem Development Foundation in collaboration with GIZ (German Technical Cooperation) at the Akyem Vocational and Technical Institute (AVTI), under its Akyem Skills Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (A-SEED) programme.
The programme, a component of the A-SEED programme, is to improve the unemployment situation of about 600 youth of which 35 per cent would be females in the Akyem mine host communities.
The Community Development Manager and Executive Secretary of the Newmont Akyem Development Foundation, Mr Paul Apenu, who briefed journalists during a tour of the project said since the inception of the programme in 2022, about 256 student had been enrolled on the programme.
He said the training would give the students or youth the necessary entrepreneurial skills to make them self-sufficient and open up their own businesses and employ others.
That, he said would help to reduce the high unemployment rate in the area and the country as a whole.
He disclosed that 35 per cent target or priority had been given to females to enroll in the vocational and technical training.
“We have strict standards in terms of ensuring equitable distribution between males and females and we have set out to ensure that we will be able to get at least 35 per cent of students within the communities to be females,” he said.
Mr Apenu mentioned the establishment of the Pempamsie Cooperative Credit Union, as another component of the A-SEED programme.
He said it currently had 2,629 members and had mobilised about GH¢20 million and disbursed GH¢3.7 million as loans to 497 members of which GH¢2.8 miilion was repaid.
A student, Miss Janet Serwaa Setugah studying wielding and fabrication at the AVTI encouraged more females to enroll at the institute and stated that even though the males were more in such courses, she felt encouraged to take up the course.
She expressed the hope to set up her own garage, and encourage other women to also come on board to change the narrative that the area was male dominated.
FROM AMA TEKYIWAA AMPADU AGYEMAN, NEW ABIREM
