Alleviating Poverty And Unemployment In Most Rural Areas In The Country; The Case Of Ahanta West District

Ahanta west has its district capital to be Agona Ahanta, and the native language spoken by these people is the Ahanta language. The festival celebrated by these lovely people is Kundum. Historically, Ahanta west is one of the richest regions on the coast of this country, Ghana. The people of the Ahanta west are lovely people and very hospitable. The major source of occupation for the people in this part of the country are mainly farming, small scale mining and fishing. They are very hardworking people in the fields of employment available to them. Today, Ahanta west as it used to be historically rich can’t boast of such riches again though all the natural resources can be located in this region.

The major problem facing or confronting the people of the Ahanta west is access to quality education and employment. Though, Ahanta west is the pivotal town where the nations mineral resources to be exported through the port passes. That is, the passage is done either through using the Agona Ahanta bi-pass or the main Agona Ahanta market and to the roundabout. As stated above, the major source of occupation is farming which includes rubber plantation mainly on the road from Agona Ahanta to Nsuem and subsistence farming, also, mining is evidenced as another source of employment for the youth of school going age in this part of the country. The sources of occupation leaves fishing as no exception as the youth are actively involved in this activity as well and an example are the youths at Dixcove(a fishing community).

Poverty as it stands now is prevalent in the Ahanta west because of the lack or availability of educational materials and basic education. It has posed a greater challenge to the indigenes and a much greater threat to the young ones. This is because, parents are unable to afford the available private schools in this area leading to drop out of kids and some not having the privilege to even step foot in the class room at the age required to be in school. The purpose of this paper however is to address the issue of poverty which has caused most parents to drop their wards from school, unequal distribution of national resources, an alternative to the provision of jobs and consequently alleviating poverty as part of a national policy to enhance general economic growth and development.

Now, in the face of these challenges confronting the people of the Ahanta West, most parents have withdrawn their children from school whilst these kids are made to help the parents either on the farm, at sea or the youth engaging in small scale mining to make some income to help themselves and family. The lack of education in this part of the country is due to poverty on the part of most parents and also the fact that, most parents had no basic education and finds no need sending their wards to school. The victims here are the children because they grow to suffer the loss. The financial challenge faced by most parents can be tackled from a certain level in the life of the current youth by implementing policies that would aim at eradicating or reducing poverty to the most minimum level.

To aid in achieving a reduced level of poverty, unemployment and ignorance in this part of the region, I strongly suggest or would recommend a Non-Governmental Organization whose mission is to support the less privileged in the economy by providing them with education and basic training that would equip the indigenes to be self-employed in their own domain of skills acquired. Such an NGO should buy into the one district, one factory policy (Governments policy and goal to provide jobs to reduce poverty and unemployment).

The NGO in supporting these indigenes can provide education by putting up temporal structures and employing SHS leavers and/or tertiary students to help in providing basic education to the young ones. This activity would prevent such kids from being rather engaged on the farms or at the sea which endangers their livelihood. For example, from Agona Ahanta which is the district capital to Mpanyinasa, Bonsokrom, Azaani and Sankor which are mainly farming communities; these towns are much deprived and the provision of basic education would be of great help.

Additionally, there could be education given to these people especially the youth through training them to acquire basic skills in the arts, carpentry, fashion etc would help them to establish businesses on their own after these training. This would help to eradicate the influx of the youth into small scale mining which when the unfortunate happens kills many when the tunnel collapses on them, or it will reduce small scale mining to save our water bodies from pollution and from drying up.

To develop as a nation, lets pay attention to our villages and communities facing key macroeconomic challenges and by so doing it would do our cities greater good even to the point of reducing rural-urban migration and so forth.

God lives.
Emmanuel De-graft Quarshie
Degraftxclusive.blogspot.com
[email protected]
0202927554/0574738810