YIEDIE holds job fair in Takoradi
More than 7,900 young people have benefited from skills training under the Youth Inclusive Entrepreneurial Development Initiative for Empowerment (YIEDIE) under the Global Communities project.
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By YIEDIE’s projections, an estimated 250,000 Ghanaians entering the labour market every year could not be absorbed through existing employment avenues unless effective policies for job creation are in place.
The Project Director for YIEDIE, Ms Vera Kafui Mills-Odoi, made this known when she addressed thousands of young people at the YIEDIE job readiness and mentoring fair in Takoradi.
She said there was therefore the need to create entrepreneurs through skills development for self-initiatives that led to job and wealth creation.
YIEDIE project
The YIEDIE project is a five-year project to create economic opportunities in the country’s construction sector for economically disadvantaged youth, implemented by Global Communities (formerly CHF International) in partnership with MasterCard Foundation.
The project will directly reach at least 23,700 youth with training in technical, life and entrepreneurship skills leading to employment.
Employment quality
Ms Mills-Odoi said there was also the need to improve employment quality in the small and medium enterprises sector which currently employed the majority of the youth.
She, however, said in spite of this, required skills needed for tasks continued to be an issue, according to several studies on youth unemployment, particularly in the construction sector, saying, “Many of those who enter the labour market after school are often ill-equipped and lack basic numeracy, language, communication, networking and workplace skills which are normally required by the private sector.”
The project director said, therefore, that the challenge for government and other stakeholders would not only be the creation of jobs for the increasing youth population, “but to increase the productivity of the workforce by establishing a comprehensive support system to make the transfer of knowledge relevant to the socio-economic development of the country.”
Ms Odoi-Mills said aside from those trained so far, YIEDIE had set a target to train 24,000 youth in job readiness skills by 2020.
Purpose
She explained that the purpose of the job readiness and mentoring fair was to stimulate discussions around comprehensive support systems to complement investments in skills development as part of the efforts to prepare Sekondi-Takoradi’s growing youth population to meet the demands of the construction job market.
For his part, Rev. Albert Ocran encouraged participants to critically look at themselves and adopt the can-do spirit to face the challenges ahead.
The sessions include presentations from various speakers drawn from construction entrepreneurs, companies and associations, civil society organisations, investors, policy makers, regulatory bodies, equipment and machinery providers.
There were also architectural and design firms, artisans and government/state agencies and YIEDIE youth who have already secured jobs in highly technical fields, who were present to inspire the participants.
