TWO hundred young entrepreneurs have undergone a training programme to enable them to recycle plastic waste into handbags as a means to generate income.
The venture, popularly refer to as Trashes for Treasure, is being provided for women, especially young girls, under the auspices of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) project.
The project, which is aimed at women empowerment, recycles trash such as plastic and metal waste to manufacture bags, door mats and metal waste to mould sculptures.
Sixty of the trainees were drawn from Abokobi and its surrounding areas in the Ga East Municipal Assembly to empower the young girls and discourage them from immigrating to the urban centres in search of non-existent jobs.
The remaining 120 women were drawn from the campus of the Institute of Professional Studies, who were required to use innovative ways of creating employment for themselves when they graduate from the institute instead of waiting for employment from the government.
Mr Francis Antwi, the Co-ordinator of the IPS branch of SIFE, in an interview, said the branch undertook the training in collaboration with Rural Women Support Network based in Abokobi and Village Network, also a local NGO.
He said Students in Free Enterprises was the initiative of an American who lived and worked in Ghana and experienced the harrowing experiences women had to undergo to secure training and macro credit to start their own income-generating ventures.
He said the SIFE, therefore, attached great importance to the granting of macro-credit facilities to rural and urban poor for the starting of their businesses.
He said currently, a Fulani herdswoman had been selected from Abokobi to be used as a model in the establishment of a diary plant for the manufacture of ice cream and yoghurt products.
Mr Antwi said the project to turn the fresh cow milk into yoghurt, when successful by patronage, could be replicated across the country to help eradicate poverty and break its cycle in the rural areas.
The co-ordinator expressed the hope that when the rural areas provided the enabling environment for the youth to earn a livelihood, it would discourage them from migrating to the urban centres in search of jobs.
Mr Antwi appealed to the youth, especially those dwelling in the rural areas, to learn a trade or acquire a profession instead of migrating to the urban centres to look for non-existent jobs, which often landed them in bad company with its attendant antisocial activities such as indulging in pornography and prostitution.
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