Minister of religion extends help to unemployed youth

A Minister of Religion, The Rev. Yong-Hak Lee, has advised parents to take advantage of voluntary and charitable institutions in the country to enrol their wards who are not able to go beyond basic education, to learn a trade. He described as worrying the growing numbers of youth without skills who wander about after basic education, and called on parents to team up with charitable organizations to offer them employable skills. Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), The Rev Lee who is the Director Voice Agricultural Training Centre at Mensahman near Nsawam, urged the youth not to look down on vocational institutions as inferior. Rather, they should be regarded as agents of development in view of the skills they give to people, and the contributions they make to the communities by way of social responsibility. The Director said the five best students of the Centre would be given a grant of 200 Ghana cedis at the end of their three-year course in tractor mechanization to start their own income generating ventures in agriculture. Aside the teaching of practical agriculture, the Centre which enrols 30 students every year, also offers students training the Christian way. The Centre also has farms, an agriculture mechanization workshop, and a hostel. Started in 1990, the Centre also offers courses in surveying, general agriculture, Mathematics, and Farm management.