10 APPRENTICES RECEIVE TOOLS (MIRROR, PAGE 35)

From Akwasi Ampratwum-Mensah, Berekum

Thirty graduate apprentices including 10 females in the Berekum municipality of the Brong Ahafo Region, who have successfully completed their training with master craftspersons in various trades, have been presented with tools and equipment worth GH¢11,000 to enable them establish and operate their own small businesses.
The donation was made possible under the Rural Enterprises Project (REP) which is being jointly funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the government of Ghana (GoG). The Berekum Municipal Assembly committed GH¢2,000 to support the programme.
The REP is part of the government’s programme to reduce poverty, create employment and thereby improve living standards in poor rural communities.
The graduate apprentices learnt hairdressing, dressmaking and tailoring, auto mechanics, auto electricals, vulcanising, gas welding, Television/Radio mechanics, carpentry, motorbike mechanics, barbering and heavy duty mechanics. They received tools and equipment free of charge.
In a speech read on his behalf at the presentation ceremony at Berekum, Mr Kwasi Attah-Antwi, the Project Co-ordinator of REP, said that so far more than 1,700 graduate apprentices had been supported with start-up kits worth about GH¢30,000, and that 34 districts had taken advantage of the project.
Mr Attah-Antwi noted that financial institutions see fresh entrepreneurs, including graduate apprentices as inexperienced and high-risk borrowers and so most of the graduates are not able to raise the initial capital for equipment, tools and raw materials they need to start work and that this accounts for the low percentage of graduates setting up and running their own business enterprises.
The project co-ordinator pointed out that REP seeks to achieve the objective of alleviating poverty through increased income and business development services, technology promotion and support for apprenticeship training, moral financial services and support of micro enterprises.
He added that the project since its inception in 2003 had reached out to more than 121,500 people, including 63,500 women and added that, of the number, more than 61,500 were trained in various community-based skills trades, small-scale business management, improved production processes, basic engineering skills, operational safety, health and environmental management and banking culture, among others.
In the area of rural financial services, Mr Attah-Antwi indicated that the participating banks had disbursed about ¢7.2 billion credit to support more than 2,600 micro and small-scale enterprises and that loan recovery rate was about 86 per cent.