The Jobs for Youth – Migration and Employment Project is being implemented by the British Council and fully funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf on German Government.
The project is designed to provide the youth with holistic learning and development opportunities to create jobs for themselves and others leveraging on their core skills and the local economic opportunities.
The project is being implemented in three regions across Ghana: Brong Ahafo, Ashanti and Greater Accra. During the period of the project,3,200 young Ghanaians will receive short-term entrepreneurship training, 400 start-ups will receive business incubation services and 90 businesses will receive business acceleration services to build enterprises that will create jobs for the youth of Ghana; promoting employment and reducing migration.
Other aspects of the project, which are being implemented to support young entrepreneurs in Ghana to build businesses that create jobs for other young people include; Enterprise Festivals, Enterprise clubs, a Small Enterprise Market Access Platform and an Enterprise Toolkit.
Between January and March this year, 3,200 budding entrepreneurs from Greater Accra, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions have received entrepreneurship training that covered Entrepreneurial Mindset, Product Design, Starting a business and financial Management.
Jobs for Youth entrepreneurship trainee Lordina Abena Konadu Yiadom had this to say about the training:
“I’ve learnt a lot from the training but the greatest of all is learning how best to treat my customer and also the techniques that must be noted when pricing your product as an entrepreneur”
During these weeks of training, the 3,200 trainees had the opportunity to pitch their business ideas or start-ups to enter into the incubation stage of the project and on 25, 26 and 29 March 2019, 400 selected start-ups will be announced at a graduation ceremony to be held in Sunyani, Kumasi and Accra, respectively.
According to Alan Walsch, Country Director of GIZ Ghana, “this project presents a great opportunity for young Ghanaians from disadvantaged population groups to become entrepreneurs, create their own small business or even expand their existing one, creating new jobs in the process. It also shows that alternatives to irregular migration do exist in the country.”
Commenting, Alan Rutt, Country Director of British Council Ghana said “British Council is delighted to be working in partnership with GIZ in providing opportunities for so many young entrepreneurs in Greater Accra, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions of Ghana. This project is tackling the huge problem of unemployment by enabling young entrepreneurs to scale up their businesses, to create jobs and to develop sustainable livelihoods. This in turn will help discourage young people taking perilous journeys through illegal migration as they see far better opportunities exist for them here at home in Ghana.”
The application to be part of the project was opened to all Ghanaians between the ages of 18-35, resident in Greater Accra, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions. The project targeted out of school youth, women and underrepresented individuals.