Head of Education of the Migrants Labour General Workers Union International (MLGWUI), Mr Justice Baako Ntarmah, has advised Ghanaians who seek to travel outside the country for greener pastures to solicit migration counselling before embarking on their journey.
According to him, there were many dubious travel agents out there who lured their victims into accepting “juicy” offers of working abroad for huge sums of money.
However, he said reality dawned on the victims when they arrived at their destinations and found out the agents they dealt with had not been entirely truthful with regard to the kind of job promised them before accepting the offer of travelling.
He gave the advice at the closing of a four-day business and entrepreneurship training for returnee migrants held on Friday at Akweley in the Awutu Senya East Municipality of the Central Region.
It was organised by the MLGWUI in collaboration with the German Sparkassen stiftung for International Cooperation (DSIK).
The training was aimed at equipping beneficiaries on the relevant skills required to properly manage businesses while encouraging those who were yet to get employed to be entrepreneurially-minded.
Mr Natarmah stated that some Ghanaian migrant workers faced lots of challenges at their destinations requiring them to take the difficult decision of returning home without achieving their migration purposes.
He said for those who left the country due to economic hardship, returning to face the same financial difficulties was a huge burden to them as most of them had families who depended on them for survival.
It was for this reasons that, he said, his outfit decided to occasionally solicit funds to organise such workshops to bring returnees together and offer them the needed support.
“We receive complaints daily from refugees and immigrants about their exclusion from sustainable and supportive business training and coaching training projects, which the DSIK is providing for general migrants so I am pleading with the DSIK to extend this project so that immigrants who are members of the MLGWUI will keep benefitting from such educative projects,” he said.
The coordinator of DSIk projects in Africa, Madam Sussane Giese, urged participants to utilise the knowledge acquired to add value to their businesses and also adopt the habit of saving towards the future.
She also encouraged them to be strict on record keeping in business to enable them to keenly monitor their progress and realise how fast or slow the businesses were moving at the right time.
Accurate record keeping, she stressed, was very necessary for the growth of every business no matter how big or small it is.
She assured that her outfit would continue to support vulnerable migrants and returnees while hoping to bring an end to the discrimination and injustice some of them faced outside their countries.
BY RAISSA SAMBOU
