A day’s orientation organised by the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) for the second batch of 83 young women in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme has taken place in Accra.
The TVET programme, dubbed the Young African Works (YAW) strategy initiative, is a two-month skills development in ICT with technical support from the GAEC for the CAMFED.
Addressing the learners, the Director-General of GAEC, Prof. Samuel Boakye Dampare, said the TVET programmes hold the key to solving the country’s unemployment challenges, and that skill acquisition by the youth from the TVET programmes such as the YAW strategy initiative would help bridge the gap of unemployment.
He, therefore, urged the learners to concentrate and focus on the objective of being empowered through the training programme so as to create jobs for themselves and make meaningful contributions to Ghanaian society.
“We always say that when you educate a woman, you educate the entire nation. It is true. It implies that you should take everything you learn seriously to have an impact and make the needed contribution to society,” he noted.
“It also serves as a means of bridging the gender gap in the TVET sector and other sectors of the economy, where the issue of men always leading while women are left behind will be broken, and we will eventually have equality and equity between men and women,” he added.
The Director-General used the occasion to promote the benefits of peaceful nuclear applications in agriculture, the environment, health, and water resources, among other areas.
The Deputy Director of the Commercialisation and Communication Directorate (CCD) and the project coordinator for the training programme at GAEC, Ms. Sheila Frimpong, charged the young women to take up the challenge, in addition to the women’s role in society, to venture into entrepreneurship and male-dominated sectors of the economy in order to make a living and care for their children.
“The main objective of the collaboration between GAEC and CAMFED is to train and empower women to become entrepreneurs and create jobs in order to earn an income to support their families, because we believe that what men can do, women can do better,” she stressed.
The orientation included presentations on academic and housekeeping rules and regulations, as well as a facility tour of the GAEC’s photo studio, electronic laboratory, and other laboratories.