NYEP has 10 Target Employment Areas

Accra, May 27, GNA - Ten employment areas have been targeted under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), a special national exercise initiated on a Presidential directive, which takes off in August this year.

Dr Charles Brempong-Yeboah, Deputy Minister Manpower, Youth and Employment who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, stated that the purpose of the programme was to explore, recommend and provide additional employment opportunities for the youth to facilitate their empowerment economically. The Deputy Minister throwing light on the Implementation Guidelines of the NYEP also known as the Ghana Youth Job Corps Programme said the areas included Youth in Agri-Business; Youth in Trades and Vocations; Youth in ICT and Community Protection. The rest are Waste and Sanitation Management; Community Education Teaching Assistants; Auxiliary Health Care Workers Assistants; Paid Internships and Industrial Attachments; Vacation Jobs and Volunteer Services.

Touching on the objectives of the areas, the Deputy Minister said the main objective of the Youth in Agri-Business was to provide employment for the youth in agricultural related activities and ventures and encourage them to take up agriculture as an occupation. He said that agricultural activities would be selected based on the relative natural comparative advantages of each district, adding that, employment task force in the Districts were to decide what area had the potential to provide sustainable employment to many of the youth in the locality.

Dr Brempong-Yeboah said the primary objective of the Youth Trades and Vocations was to economically empower the youth who engage in non-agriculture ventures through self-employment by ensuring that they were well-organised and sufficiently supported both financially and through the provision of other resources to enable them to undertake their activities in a sustainable manner.

The Youth in ICT, he said, was aimed at providing employment to the youth by developing and sustaining a pool of knowledgeable ICT workforce in critical skill areas and professions that would contribute to the process of developing Ghana's economy. The Deputy Minister said the Community Protection System was to enhance safety and security, as well as to strengthen law and order. He explained that the Community Protection Units would comprise young men and women who would be engaged to support the law enforcement agencies in maintaining law and order and keeping the peace.

Furthermore, he said, they would receive basic training in community protection since their work would be a continuous assignment and supplementary to that of the regular law enforcement agencies and given reasonable remuneration.

Dr Brempong-Yeboah who is also the MP for Atiwa in the Eastern Region, said the Waste and Sanitation Management Corps was aimed at contributing to the maintenance of clean public facilities and healthy households, thereby ensuring the availability of a strong and healthy workforce for the nation. He stated that the Community Education Teaching Assistants would create opportunities for a pool of young men and women with at least second cycle level education who would help deliver pre and basic school level educational services in rural areas.

The Deputy Minister said the Auxiliary Health Care Workers Assistants would assist health professionals to deliver basic support services at health institutions such as hospitals, clinics and health posts, particularly in the rural areas. The programme, he stated, would also seek to encourage the Auxiliary Healthcare Workers to develop themselves to be able to progress to professional health and nursing courses. Dr Brempong-Yeboah said the Paid Internships and Industrial Attachments, was aimed at formalizing internship and industrial attachments among young men and women. He explained that Vacation Jobs would ensure that students both in Secondary and Tertiary Institutions during vacations were offered employment opportunities to earn income and to make the best of their leisure time and offer voluntary service to their communities.

The Deputy Minister stated that Volunteer Services, was to provide opportunities for a pool of young men and women who would provide services to communities on voluntary basis to contribute to the socio-economic and sustainable development of the communities. The module, he said, would eventually inculcate a sense of patriotism and social belonging into the youth with a view to forging social and cultural integration. On Friday, May 19, Cabinet approved an amount of more than 1.1 trillion cedis for the smooth take-off of the NYEP in August this year.