Support 5000 young graduates to be self-employed

Ghana just came out of a power supply crisis early this year - 2016, but not without it affecting many local businesses – small and big. Recruitment has been frozen in the public serctor and many private businesses have cut down their workforce while others were forced to shut down. Consequently, with the annual graduation rate going above 90,000 a year, the number of unemployed youth is at its highest this year.

And your guess is right. Totally Youth now have more requests for support than it can handle due to our limited funds. We have therefore had to deny too many candidates support, this year. This has been very hard for us. We know their plight and it always seems heartless, when we have to say no to needy candidates.

But with all these difficulties and hopelessly, we are very grateful to all our donors for the support they have been able to provide. This has made it possible to help several unemployed youth through mentoring, counseling and capacity building to increase their prospects of getting jobs. Isaac, Larbi, Enoch, Hannah and Frank are now all fully employed. Isaac, Larbi and Frank have now moved to our Career Facilitation Programme and will be with us until May 2016, when we hope they will have saved enough to move out on their own. We will then be able to take on more of the needy candidates who also need accommodation.

With your support, we have been able to take on board two new incubators – Allen and Derick. Allen has patented a health drink from the gingko leave and wants to start a beverage business. We are currently helping him to obtain his final certification from the Ghana Food and Drugs Board, so he can bring in his first consignments to start his business. He will as usual start on our premises and we continue to give him requisite mentoring and coaching as well as capacity building to ensure his success. Allen will be recruiting four interns once he starts, thereby taking five youth off the unemployment list. We are supporting Derick to start his own restaurant, which will employ 13 unemployed youth as interns also under our incubation programme with all the requisite mentoring, coaching and training.

We are therefore looking up to our donors to support Allen with US$4,000 and Derick with US$11,000 to ensure that they achieve their dreams as well as the dreams of 17 other unemployed youth. We will be grateful indeed if we could get recurrent donors so that we can avoid price increases that eat into our funds. Recurrent donations will also help us plan more effectively and ensure that we can help more participants at any given time.

We are counting on your usual kind considerations to help us support them. Just imagine that they are your daughters, sons, siblings, peers, etc, and I trust that you will find it in your hearts to help out even more than you have done so far. I believe sincerely that poverty is only a matter of missed opportunities. Together, we can ensure that our unemployed youth get all the opportunities they need to become responsible and productive citizens.

THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS. HAVE A GREAT EASTER.

• The Plight Of The Youth (PDF)