The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Youth Authority (NYA), Mr Pius Enam Hadzideh, has said that the authority will continue to work to counter the wave of depravity that threatens the country’s youth.
According to him the values that identified the Ghanaian were being eroded by selfishness, lack of leadership, myopia, aversion to civic responsibility such as payment of taxes, political vigilantism and disregard for the environment.
“As the statutorily mandated body responsible for developing a creative, disciplined and dynamic youth and imbibing them with the spirit of nationalism, patriotism, sense of propriety and civic responsibility, it is imperative that the NYA lives up to its mandate now and counters the wave of depravity that threatens to take hold of the Ghanaian youth,” he emphasised.
Mr Hadzideh gave the assurance at a stakeholder’s consultative forum on the National Youth Volunteers Programme (NYVP) in Accra yesterday.
He noted that the factors eroding the values of the youth did not exist in isolation, neither were they divorced from material conditions that they lived under.
“This is particularly true in the context of the global pandemic which has slowed the impressive attempts by government to provide respite to the Ghanaian youth by building a buoyant and resilient economy which provides gainful employment opportunities for them,” he said.
The CEO noted that the authority was aware that any attempt to correct this wrong trajectory must take into consideration the entire economic, social and cultural context that the youth lived under.
Touching on the NYVP, he said it would usher a paradigm shift where service to nation and neighbour, rather than ostensible display of unexplainable wealth become the indicators of success to the over 11million youth of the country.
He said by providing an institutional framework to manage volunteerism within the country, the programme would establish a vibrant culture of volunteerism in the country.
“Over the next five years, some 100,000 young Ghanaians are expected to be recruited into one of the 13 modules of the programme,” he stressed.
On his part, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, said he was pleased that the NYA had once again risen to the occasion.
He noted that the government was proud to provide leadership that led to building capacity of the youth to enable them completely take up the mantle of leadership tomorrow.
MrUssif explained that young people across the globe faced many challenges in their quest to build a better and brighter future for themselves.
“This is even dire in Africa where majority of the youth are either unemployed or unskilled. It is therefore appreciable, again, that the NYA , true to its core mandate has recognised young people as a major driving force in contributing to national growth and development,” he emphasised.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
