MTN Empowers 40 Youth Through Skills Training, Start-Ups

Forty (40) participants from Ampabame, a farming community in the Ejisu-Juabeng Municipality of the Ashanti Region have received equipment from telecom operator, MTN-Ghana, to start their own businesses.

The participants, who were taken through a week skills training in soap-making by the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), will use the equipment to expand the knowledge acquired so as to economically empower themselves and also change lives within the communities they operate.

MTN-Ghana funded the cost of the week’s intensive training and provided them with the needed equipment for soap making to help the participants fully establish themselves.

MTN's Northern Business District Manager in charge Mobile Money, Mr. Stephen Asare, said a number of Ghanaian youth from the Brong Ahafo and the three regions of the north have benefited from the annual program which is aimed at enhancing their economic lives.

He indicated that MTN-Ghana usually engages in broad consultation with the targeted communities to know the exact areas of interest before partnering with the Government agency which can then build the capacities of the selected persons.

“In broader terms, MTN's Corporate Social Responsibilities, one of the key areas we touch is the economic empowerment, and that is exactly what we are doing here. It is very key to us as a business and to Government as a whole”, he added.

He explained that the company deems the support as very important to the beneficiaries since giving them physical cash without equipping them with the needed skills will not bring the needed change to their lives.

He said the cost of the training and materials provided to them run into several thousands of cedis.

Ashanti Regional Manager for the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), Manu Bashir, said the participants have made some products and have also shown commitment to ensure the training they received will be used for the right purpose.

One of the participants who is among her peers mostly women, Angelina Dufei, was excited and promised to make the training useful and to also impact the lives of others.

She and the other beneficiaries displayed well packaged liquid soap they had prepared on their own and revealed that they had already started earning money from the training.