President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has presented gold awards to 160 young people who have successfully completed the prescribed activities of the Head of State Award Scheme.
The Heads of State award scheme is designed to give young people the opportunity to volunteer in the community, increase their fitness, develop their skills, while taking part in expeditions.
The award is also about nurturing talents, stretching capabilities, helping the youth to believe in themselves while instilling in them the culture of giving back to their community.
At the presentation ceremony at the Jubilee House in Accra on Thursday, President Akufo-Addo congratulated the gold award winners and called on the nation to offer them all the encouragement and support they require to grow to become responsible adults.
“These award recipients have demonstrated that young people in Ghana are responding with relish to challenges and they have all it takes to compete with other young people all over the world.”
“However, it must be stated that these young men and women, need our encouragement and help in any form to blossom into holistic young adults we can be proud of, and who can justifiably be proud of themselves,” President Akufo-Addo said.
“That encouragement is what the award scheme provides as a challenge. It enables them embark on a journey of self-discovery, to find out just how much they are capable of, sometimes to the surprise of others, more often to their own surprise,” the President added.
President Akufo-Addo called on the youth to take advantage of his administration’s ‘You Start’ flagship programme which has set aside GHC10 million to support young Ghanaians who intend to start their own businesses or improve their existing businesses.
“Government has set aside GHC10 million in support of young entrepreneurs to enable them create new businesses and expand existing ones. Under the ‘You Start’ programme, Government would direct financial and technical support towards young entrepreneurs in the country to develop commercially viable businesses and create jobs for the youth.”
“In other words, it will be a vehicle for supporting young entrepreneurs to gain access to capital, training, technical skills and mentoring to enable them launch and operate their own businesses,” Akufo-Addo said.
“I am particularly happy to announce the HoSA STEMCRACKER project meant to provide STEM Career advisory services and employability toolkits for young people, employers and job seekers,” the President further added.
Executive Director for the Head of State Award Scheme – Ghana, Peter Akai, noted that the Gold Award ceremony was a testimony of young people’s commitment and contribution to community and national development.
“Their individual and collective participation in various community-based activities have impacted positively in the society. The Global Youth Mobilisation project funded by the World Health Organisation through the Global Big Six Organisation is helping us develop the vocational skills of 2,000 vulnerable young people,” Mr Anum said.
“Over the next 12 months, we shall be establishing Digital Youth Centres in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions as part of our digital pilot project purposely to offer training to 1,000 young people in technology and digital marketing as part of their skills development.”
“I’m happy to announce that the phase one of construction of the new Award Office for the Award Secretariat is currently at 60 per cent completion stage. We are very grateful to the President for the seed capital to kick start the project,” he added.
Since its inception in Ghana in 1967, the Head of State Award Scheme has consistently focused on developing the ‘soft core skills’ such as resilience, confidence, communication, and problem-solving skills of young people.
Through engaging in voluntary services; taking part in physical recreational activities, discovering personal interests, talents and skills for entrepreneurship; and learning about leadership through adventurous journeys, young people become confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged learners.
Developing these skills assist young people from the widest variety of backgrounds; from correctional facilities to youth and sports clubs, and community youth groups to international and public schools to be ready for life and work.
The Award is providing young people with the opportunity to unleash their potential and we invite more young people across the country to join the Award. The experience and impact of the Award Scheme is truly remarkable and life changing!
BY YAW KYEI
