The Upper East Regional Office of the Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) has organized a Regional Career Fair to expose beneficiaries to career opportunities and ways to develop their talents as part of preparation towards their exit from the programme after three years.
The Nation Builders Corps is aimed at engaging a total of 100,000 unemployed Ghanaian youth under various modules to work mainly in public sector institutions for a period of three years.
By the end of their three years engagement with the Nation Builders Corps programme all beneficiaries are expected to exit from the programme and get themselves into permanent employment in existing private and public sector institutions or start their own businesses.
“This is the essence of the Nation Builders Corp; we recruited unemployed youth and placed them in institutions according to their modules; we get these trainees to work and learn in these institution for a period of three years. By the end of this period, some will be retained for permanent employment, others will get permanent jobs outside the institutions they have been assigned under NABCo and some will start their own business. This is what NABCo is all about,” Dr. Anyars Ibrahim, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in an interview with journalists in Bolgatanga.
Ibrahim was in the Upper East Region to address trainees at the Upper East Regional Career Fair, under the NABCo Skills and Talents Road Show.
The NABCo trainees were taken through business plan and proposal writing, preparation towards job interviews and CV writing.
Other resource persons took trainees through steps to start business, entrepreneurship and counselling on how to make right academic choices,(for beneficiaries who intend to go back to school after the NABCo period.)
The Nation Builders Corps is being implemented in two strands, which are the working and learning strands, and from the year 2020, the leadership of NABCo has hinted that the organization will seriously monitor trainees at their various work places, to ensure that they all work and learn on the job.
According to Dr. Anyars Ibrahim at the end of the first year of implementation, a total of 11,000 trainees/beneficiaries were lucky to exit from the programme for permanent jobs and start their own business and hoped that as many get trained on the job, they will also secure permanent jobs or start their own businesses.
Director in-charge of Business Research and Skills Development at NABCo, Mubarak Bowan urged the NABCo trainees not to be so content with the GHc700.00 stipends given them, rather they should be learning and working hard to be retained at their various institutions they have been assigned to.
“This is the time, the platform has been created for you, we have invested in creating the opportunities for you to learn and work at the same time. For those who are with NABCo because of the GHc700.00, it is unfortunate. We want beneficiaries to take advantage of this platform to learn to improve on their lives and incomes after their stay with NABCo.” Mr. Mubarak Bowan advised.
The Skills and Talents Road Show is being held across the country and the Bolgatanga edition was the 12th edition. It attracted some NABCo beneficiaries from almost all the districts in the region.
Meanwhile, the regional leadership of NABCo is expected to organise similar Career fair at the district level, to ensure that all beneficiaries are covered.
FROM: Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga