body-container-line-1
13.12.2018 Regional News

Brong Ahafo: SYDA Commended For Skills Development Training

By GNA
Brong Ahafo: SYDA Commended For Skills Development Training
13.12.2018 LISTEN

The introduction of self-employment training programmes initiated by the Sunyani Youth Development Association (SYDA), has won praises from The Centre for National Culture (CNC).

The CNC is commending SYDA for its vision of giving members employable skills to enhance their living standards.

The founders and leadership of the group had designed self-employment training programmes based on the production of creative arts and cultural industry items, such as traditional bangles and necklaces made from beads and locally-manufactured clothing.

The beneficiaries include persons with disabilities (PWDs), adolescent and teenage single mothers and school drop-outs as well as young boys and girls from broken homes.

Mrs. Helen Sinabisi Akanbong, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Director of CNC, who lauded the association was addressing participants at a visual arts competition organised by the Association, over the weekend in Sunyani.

The event, on the theme 'Visual Arts, a Tool for National Development' was attended by children aged between seven and 15, from 19 selected basic schools in the Sunyani Municipality and Sunyani West District.

She lauded the idea and initiative of the visual arts competition, saying that, it could increase the level of the participants' knowledge in the culture and arts industry.

Mrs. Akanbong said it could also attract other children to develop interest in that area of study (visual arts industry) because of the pleasurable and educative nature of the competition.

She therefore encouraged the Association to persist in sensitising the youth and children on the importance of skills training, stating that, 'grooming the children at this stage would build their mind to be great inventors for the nation's prosperous future' and assured of the Centre`s support in that regard.

Mr. Attah Akoto, the President of the Association said the competition was to emphasise the fact that 'the arts and culture are a recreation and source of employment'.

He explained that the competition also sought to end the habit and canker of 'gambling and stealing among a section of the youth' by keeping and equipping them to develop their God-given potentials and skills for national development.

Later in an interview, Mr. Francis Kodom, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Chair of the Ghana Association of Visual Artists described the objectives and activities of the Association as a productive plan that would promote and improve the visual arts industry in the country.

Participants were given plaques, certificates, school bags, sets of pen and pencils and other teaching and learning materials as their prizes.

---GNA

body-container-line