Each of the 54 beneficiaries including a male, who had gone through series of selection criteria, was provided modern and basic equipment such as an industrial straight machine for dressmakers and tailors, standing dryer, sterilizer and washing sink for hairdressers and an oven and a cylinder for the caterers.

The VTF programme was established to promote TVET and apprenticeship and help provide opportunities for young people to be innovative, creative and enterprising.VTF seeks to support an effective TVET delivery in the country and provide services that would enable TVET graduates and apprentices transit easily unto the labour market through enterprise development, job placement and counseling, literacy and numeracy and entrepreneurship skills training.

At a ceremony to present the items in Koforidua, Ms Lynda Agyei, Director VTF, said skills acquisition alone in the form of apprenticeship did not create employment and there is the need for such interventions to ensure the creation of employment and growth.She said it was in this direction, that the VTF for the past 10 years has provided business start-up support to many artisans in the Greater Accra and the Ashanti regions and decided this year to extend it to the New Juaben and the Okere constituencies in the Eastern Region.

Ms Agyei said apart from the start-up equipment, all the beneficiaries would be taken through small business management training where they would be taken through relevant topics like customer service, marketing, record keeping to enhance their professionalism to deliver quality service.

Nana Adjei Boateng, the Deputy Local Government Minister and Member of Parliament for New Juaben North, commended VTF for championing Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) for job creation for the youth.

He said TVET and apprenticeship programs in the informal sector was critical to national development and urged the beneficiaries to justify the support given them through hard work.Madam Comfort Asante, New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), said any venture that provided livelihood was not inferior and advised the beneficiaries to use the start-up support which was the first of its kind in the area to prove that TVET was the way to go in creating employment.