YEA employs over 62,000 youth

The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) with the mission of coordinating employment opportunities and creation of jobs for the youth has engaged 62,825 people countrywide, under different employable modules as at October this year.

The modules with the highest employed numbers are the Community Education Teaching with 20,603 followed by Community Health Workers-19,500 while 4,832 others are engaged under the Community Police Assistant unit. Other modules of YEA include Fire Service Assistant, Prisons Service Assistant, Marine Engineering Technician, Environmental Protection Officers, and paid interns among others.

Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum in Sunyani, Joseph Kwesi Holison, Brong Ahafo Regional Director of YEA said it is expected to increase the number of employedyouth to 100,000 by the end of December 2016.

He said the Agency is vigorously recruiting and training some people in areas like apparels and textiles, trade and vocation, and ICT. “We are providing employable skills to the youth to enable them compete on the job market and also make others self-employed, specializing in areas such as garment making and ICT application development.”

Mr. Holison also hinted that YEA plans to employ more people under its Youth in Agriculture module during the next major farming season. “In the Brong Ahafo alone, we will cultivate about 10,000 hectares. Because farming in the country is mainly rain-fed, and we couldn’t start our grounds work early, we are waiting patiently until somewhere March 2017 to commence our farming activities. It’s going to be a massive production to enhance food security and wealth creation.”

“There is going to be an afforestation project, but we don’t want be like SADA’s initiative, where trees were planted during the dry season so we are holding on till the rain set in before we begin. YEA is now restructured; strict adherence to the public procurement act, payment of beneficiaries’ allowance through E-Zwich and other cashless operating systems have helped to reduce corruption drastically,” he added.

The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) was established under the Youth Employment Act 2015 (Act 887) to empower young people to contribute meaningfully to the socio-economic and sustainable development of the nation. Its objective is to support the youth between the ages of 15 to 35 years through skills training and internship modules to transit from a situation of unemployment to that of employment.

YEA metamorphosed from the then Ghana Youth Employment Development Agency (GYEEDA) which was inundated by massive corruption scandals. GYEEDA which was a public initiative targeted at youth development however failed to achieve its purpose as it was charaterised by shady deals and corruption related activities, causing huge public outcry, leading to its restructuring into YEA.

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