WE MUST MAKE SURE THIS TIME AROUND TO CHANGE THE YOUTHS ECONOMIC PURCEPTION Yesterday was the International Day of Youths and i was quietly listening to various statements from world leaders. I also followed statements by youth leaders and some potential youth leaders across the country. One thing that is clear from various statements was that the youths are very much ready to take the challenges and work things for themselves. The National Youth Authority of ghaa in collaboration with the government of Ghana organised a youth dialogue at the Conference Centre in the morning where the president John Mahama interacted with several youths. The most important part of the days events for me was the lunch of the Youth Enterprise Support fund by HE John Mahama in the evening at the State Banquet Hall here in Accra. As I sat at the banquet hall last night listening to the president speaking about the efforts by some youths who started their businesses with as little as 200 Ghana and build the business to about one million Ghana cedis, I only remember the various stories I read about some world business magnates like George Soros, Richard Brandson, and Mr. Greene of the UK and the bill Gates, Rocky Fellah, Chris Turner and Warren Buffet of the USA. Sometime we all think some of those success stories are only possible in the Western Countries but the fact is that the success to business enterprise has no boarders. They are not limited to any country and so anybody with the desire and passion can become a business magnate like the Dangotes of Nigeria if you put your minds to it. I have tried severally to ask my students for a business proposal that each think could attract financing but never got one very good proposal that any serious business person will like to put his money into. One big problem I observed was the lack of ability and readiness to conduct good research into the area of business they want to enter. One important ingredient of business is your marketing strategy. Any serious business proposal must clearly show the understanding of the product you are offering to solve a particular need of people. Then you must also make necessary efforts to identify those who will be ready to remove their walets and purse to buy your products. The unfortunate thing about our educational system is that we are all trained to think as jobseekers and not job-creators. If you have an orientation to be thinking as job-creator you will always be asking about what people needs and finding solutions to those needs. Unfortunately all we learn is about how somebody can take care of our needs, especially by government. We seriously need to change our orientation and start thinking about how we can design things that could solve our personal problems and that of others eventually. The YES lunched yesterday by the president is very timely, especially at the time the country is going through serious challenges and unemployment is skyrocketting. We currently have about 90,000 young graduates who are registered to do national service this year and all will join the unemployed graduate soon after that. But can you imagine if just about 30% of them can start their own businesses which have the potential of employing just 5 others? The president yesterday shows his passion for the youth development. He showed that he has been going round to identify those who are already in their own business doing good and set examples to the others. One significant thing was how the president identify the young disabled shoe maker who was sitting right beside the president last night at the banquest hall. If that guy can do it I wonder what could prevent a young graduate from achieving same. Go for this opportunity today and come to tell the whole world your success story tomorrow. Dont sit down and complain that somebody is not giving you a job or not helping you to find one. Take your destiny into your own hand and grab this opportunity and tell yourself YES I CAN. Sit down quietly for three days and come out with an idea and put it down on paper. Do some research about that idea and find out who will be ready to pay for your idea and how much those people would be ready to pay. That is the surest beginning of your business. It is not how much you started the business with but its about how many people are ready to buy your products and how eager are you to see all those people satisfied. To the managers of the YES funds I say we will be watching them closely to ensure that this time around we all get real value for our moneys. We would name and shame anybody who will try to have big stomach while the youth still remained where they were before. We strongly believe that if handled properly this initiative by the president would change the job environment of the country and revamp the economy as many youth become directors of their own affairs. We must not fail the President this time. We must not become selfish and give the moneys to our cronies who have no passion to run business or have useless business ideas. We must just look at Ghanaians as such and ensure that the best ones get the moneys as we mantor and monitor them to succeed. YES WE CAN, YES WE CAN, YES WE CAN. KUDOS MR. PRESIDENT By George E. Ekegey
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:07:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015