YIEDIE Beneficiaries Call for Project Extension

By Kingsley Asare

Beneficiaries of the Youth Inclusive Entrepreneurial Development Initiative for Employment (YIEDIE) project have called for the extension of the 2020 deadline for the project to enable others to benefit from it.

They described the project as a very important intervention in helping the youth to achieve their dreams and also contribute towards socio-economic development.

"The programme has been very helpful to the youth. I never thought of owning my own company but with the help of the YIEDIE, I now have my own business," Muratu Mohammed, a beneficiary said.

Speaking at an awareness creation fair held by YIEDIE at Kumasi she said she had established her own tiling business and engaged about four people.

She encouraged the youth not to sit idle but join the YIEDIE programme to build their skills and play active role in Ghana's construction sector.

YIEDIE is a five-year project designed to improve the capacity of the youth and service providers across the construction value chain through an integrated youth-led market systems model to create economic opportunities for youth and women in the construction industry.

YIEDIE hopes to directly reach 23,700 youth aged between 17-24 years who have dropped out of school living on less than $2 a day in Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi, Tema and Ashiaman with training in technical, life and entrepreneurship skills leading to employment.

Sponsored by Mastercard Foundation, the YIEDIE Project which ends in 2020 is being implemented by Global Communities, an international non-profit organisation, with other partners as Opportunities Industrialisation Centre (OIC) Ghana, African Aurora Business Network LLC, Republic Boafo Limited and Artisans Association of Ghana.

Robert Kyei Bafour, another beneficiary based in Kumasi was full of praise for the project saying it had transformed his life.

"I'm appealing to the managers of this project to extend the date for the end of the project because there are a lot of my colleagues who will be interested in benefiting from the project," he said.

Addressing the scores of youth who attended the fair Mr Paul Twene, Capacity Building and Training Specialist, Global Communities said the rationale behind the fair was to create an opportunity for the youth to interact with successful business men and women within the construction sector with similar backgrounds and past graduates of the project to boost their interest in the sector.

The fair also sought to provide the platform for interested youth to be enrolled on the project and for the project to showcase its achievements over the past years to the public.

He encouraged the youth to take advantage of the numerous job opportunities in the construction section to build their skills and create their own businesses to address the growing unemployment situation in the country.

He said the construction sector was booming in the country and there were a lot of job openings in the sector, which the youth could take advantage of to improve their lives.

Dr Emmanuel Ampoma Afum, lecturer, Electrical Engineering, KNUST urged the youth to take advantage of the project to build their capacity in the construction sector.

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