GHANA: Youth urges government to provide them with needed skills for employment – By Mellisa Sheridan, ANA Correspondent in Berlin

The Zongo Diaspora Outreach Foundation (ZDOF) and the Group Youth Centre in Accra have called on the government to provide the youth with the needed skills to ensure their employability to reduce the mounting youth employment in the country.

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A spokesperson of ZDOF Germany branch, Daou Jawara,  told ANA-ZongoNews Media Group that, most of the time at the ZDOF and the Group Youth Centre in Accra “we hear examples of highly qualified young University graduates making the most of their youth struggling to save money and travel abroad due to lack of jobs in the country.”

The spokesperson observed that worryingly, most of the young people aged between 17 to 28 were planning their exodus from Ghana to Europe through the “Mediterranean of death”.

“Most of the young people who visit our offices and with whom we interacted with expressed fears and anxiety that the Ghanaian economy provides only fewer job opportunities for University graduates in the country,” he said.

Officials from ZDOF in Germany, Mr Jawara said,  recently had the opportunity to interact with young Ghanaian graduates who made it to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea. Talking to some of them, we realised the great loss to the country given the level of skills among these youthful, highly trained Ghanaians who were forced by circumstances to leave their country.

It is worrying that more than half of the Ghanaian graduates don’t get job after completing their university education.

According to Mr Jawara, a large percentage of  young people in the country have no basic computer skills, adding that ZDOF Ghana and Germany in conjunction with Group Youth Centre in Accra, hope to address the situation confronting the youth in terms of computer skills to equip them with multi-media and IT skills for them to play a role in boosting the Ghanaian economy.

The government of Ghana, faced with the daunting tasks and challenges in all sectors of the economy, must endeavour to address the ardous problems facing the youth in the country and encourage national debate about how best to address young people’s continued exodus from the country through Libya to Europe.

Youth unemployment in the country, observed Mr Jawara,  was at a historic high and whenever we interact with the youth visiting ZDOF and Group Youth Centre in Accra, we are moved by the situation they are facing.

“We are trying to work with individuals and organisations on employability skills for the youth. The government of Ghana, ZDOF and Group Youth Centre have responsibility to ensure that the youth of Ghana, as our future leaders, flourish in the country of their birth,” he stressed.