Students schooled on fund-raising, entrepreneurship
Scores of tertiary students across the country have been schooled in Accra on various ways of raising funds and running their own enterprises.
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The participants, all of whom are students and who expressed interest in competing in the fourth edition of the Osei-Kusi Foundation (OKF) and Selfless4Africa’s Community Service Award to execute their various projects, were taken through fund-raising, volunteerism, social entrepreneurship, as well as transformational leadership.
Applicants
In all, about 108 tertiary students from 54 teams that submitted applications for the award attended the seminar to share ideas and be equipped to raise funds for development projects to benefit the country.
“Previously, only the shortlisted teams for the Community Service Award attended such workshops, but this time it included all who submitted applications,” the Executive President of OKF, Dr Kofi Osei-Kusi, said.
Why the workshop
He added that the organisers realised that it was not enough for young people to always wait for their projects to be funded by corporate organisations or non-governmental organisations (NGOs), hence the fund-raising skills seminar.
He noted that the workshop, aside from building capacity, also provided networking opportunity among the students to encourage them to create the change the country required.
“Even though it is only seven teams that have been shortlisted to compete for the award, it is necessary to bring all the teams together to take lessons in the necessary tools required to raise funds on their own to complete their projects should they fall out of the seven,” Dr Osei-Kusi noted.
The shortlisted
The seven teams chosen to partake in this year’s Community Service Award included Team Ace from the University of Health and Allied Sciences; Team Flourishing from the University of Ghana and Team Need from the University of Energy and Natural Resources.
Others are Team Coded from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Team Change from the Regent University College, Team Innovators from the Bolgatanga Polytechnic and Team Solutionists from the University of Cape Coast.
Dr Osei-Kusi explained that two teams of panellists, made up of experts from the United States of America and Ghana, scrutinised all applications, looking out for project viability and good strategy and its workability.
He counselled the youth of Ghana to cultivate the habit of volunteerism and develop a strong patriotic spirit within them to make the country a better place.
The Community Service Award was initiated in March 2014 by OKF and Selfless 4Africa with the aim of inculcating the spirit of volunteerism and community service in young people.
It has arguably become the biggest platform for volunteerism among tertiary students in the country.