The trade areas they were trained in included leather works, make-up artistry, catering, grasscutter and snail rearing, piggery and mushroom breeding.

Some were also trained in Information Communication Technology (ICT), specifically how to install CCTV, as well as the use of the virtual space to help promote their businesses.

The two-day skills training programme held at the Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED) and the Kumasi Anglican Senior High School (KASS), all in Greater Kumasi, ended last Friday.

The initiative, the first of kind, was organised by the executive members of the Ghana National Service Personnel Association (NASPA), free of charge, as part of this year’s National Service Personnel (NSP) week-long celebration hosted by the region.

The training will be replicated in the remaining 15 regions in the coming days.

Be innovative

The President of the NASPA, Emmanuel Wit Duncan Agbogha, advised service personnel to be innovative because the certificates they had acquired from their various tertiary institutions were not enough to earn them the required jobs they desired in today’s world.

“As we all know, the government alone cannot shoulder the responsibility to employ all graduates once they complete school,” he emphasised, adding that an estimated 90 per cent of students who graduated yearly had to create jobs for themselves in order to survive.

He said aside the certificates they had gotten, there was the need for all to get other basic competencies so that they could be self dependent.

“Invest in career guidance and work-based education to enable you acquire relevant skills needed for work,” Mr Agbogha said, adding that the NASPA was concerned about the welfare of service personnel.

Series of events scheduled for the week-long celebration include a float, clean-up, a get-together, as well as symposiums and donations to some orphanages.

Commendation

One of the beneficiaries, Tracy Asante, a science and industrial laboratory technician, who completed the Kumasi Technical University (KsTU), commended the NASPA for such a demand-driven employment package.

“Now I can make sandals to sell and make some earnings; after all, only God knows when our certificates will get us jobs,” she told the Daily Graphic.

The NASPA is an association under the Ghana National Service Scheme.

Established in 1983, the association has become the official mouthpiece for Ghanaian youth, especially service/voluntary personnel as far as their welfare is concerned.