Accra, Ghana, June 3, 2019//-MTN Ghana today announced that more than 600 youth in Accra and Takoradi would be trained in ICT skills, as part of activities to mark this year’s 21 Days of Y’ello Care Challenge in the country.
Out of this number, 300 of the youth in Accra would benefit from digital market training, while the remaining 300 youth in Takoradi would benefit from coding under the training and skill enhancement project.
MTN Ghana is working with the National Youth Authority and the iCode GH to train the youth. Also, the top executives of the telecoms company would mentor 25 young CEOs at a day’s session at the NTN Ghana headquarters in Accra.
This came to light at the launch of the annual MTN staff volunteering programme where the telecoms company’s 1820 staff whether permanent, contract or third party staff are expected to take a minimum of three hours off within the 21 day period to voluntary work.
The volunteering work involves all levels of staff including Executives and the CEO.
Speaking at the launch, the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh noted that youth empowerment is critical for the socio-economic development of the country.
To this end, he said: “Ghana has a young age structure with approximately 57% of the population under the age of 25. The youth are the greatest assets any nation has. Not only are they regarded as the future leaders, they are actually the greatest investment for a country’s development and we must bring out the best in them”.
In that regard, the company is working with state actors and non-actors to help reduce unemployment among the teeming young population in the country.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Youth Authority, Emmanuel Asigri added: “We are poised of getting the young people of Ghana get something to do. 2,400 young people have been trained on digital marketing since 2017”.
He continued: “MTN Ghana assisted us with free data for these young people. As a result of this assistance, something big is coming out of it>
Mr Asigri used the occasion to call other companies to partner the Authority to help address the youth unemployment in the West African country.
Instructively, the 21 Days of Y’ello Care Challenge is an annual employee volunteering initiative launched by MTN Group in 2007 to encourage MTN staff to commit their time and resources to community service for 21 days in June.
The “21 Days of Y’ello Care” is a competition amongst MTN operations worldwide to ascertain the highest number of staff involved in volunteerism and initiating projects with remarkable impact. The country with the highest staff participation and the most impactful project wins the prize money of $100,000 which is expected to be reinvested in community projects.
Since its inception, MTN Ghana has won the 2008 WECA Regional Awards and the overall Y’ello Care Challenge for 2010 and 2011. MTN Ghana also won the Y’ello Care ICT Project for 2013 and Y’ello Care Innovation Project award for 2014.
African Eye Report
