Nana Akua Pomaa I, the Kuronitre Division Benkumhemaa of the Sunyani Traditional Area and the Ambassador of the Association, made the declaration when she was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sideline of a cleanup exercise organised by the Association in Sunyani.

The four-hour exercise (0600 hours-1000 hours) covered the entire central business district of the Sunyani Township where the members cleared choked gutters, swept some principal streets and weeded some bushy areas.

Nana Pomaa said Sunyani was experiencing a rapid and high population growth which is a contributory factor to the insanitary situation in some suburbs of the Municipality.

She said “being a spectator in a city does not improve development, hence the need for every individual to play his or her role in assisting the Assembly because diseases have no mercy for the rich or the poor”.

Nana Pomaa said SYDA as part of its activities would embark on a waste management and sanitation education campaign on the need for every person to effectively cultivate the habit of preventing insanitary conditions in the city.

She said the SYDA was formed to support the under-privileged and vulnerable people in the entire Brong-Ahafo Region to acquire employable skills through the provision free trade and vocational training to apprentices.

Nana Pomaa said the beneficiaries were engaged in hair dressing, dressmaking, tailoring, carpentry, masonry, plumbing, leather works (footwear and bag manufacturing), pastries making, beads making and fashion and decoration.

She said the Association aims at providing opportunities to “those who feel that they are helpless and hopeless in the society and prepare them to acquire employable skills to become self- employed to put smiles on their faces”.

The project, Nana Pomaa said, had huge potential to end the high rate of youth unemployment in the region and assist in promoting rapid socio-economic development of the nation.She said the high number of apprentices the project sought to engage and train could contribute immensely to achieve the objectives of the government`s One District, One Factory agenda, an avenue for government to create more jobs in the country.

Nana Pomaa appealed to government, non-governmental organisations, philanthropists, businesses and corporate institutions and charitable organisations to support the Association to achieve its goals.

Mr Atta Akoto, the President of the Association, said currently 58 people comprising the youth and adolescents - but majority of them being females -have been enrolled as apprentices to learn trades or acquire vocational skills of their respective choices to enhance their livelihoods.

He expressed the hope that social vices such as armed-robbery, drug abuse, gambling, illegal migration, teenage pregnancy and alcoholism could be reduced if the youth were supported to acquire lucrative employable skills.