GRASSROOTS NGOs ARE IMPORTANT STAKEHOLDERS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

 It’s estimated that over 200 million Africans are between the ages of 15 and 24; making Africa the youngest population in the world. The World Bank 2016 report on jobs in Ghana disclosed that about 48 percent of the youth in Ghana, who are  between 15 - 24 years do not have jobs. The report further emphasized that unemployment is higher among young women -17% of young females do not have jobs as opposed to 11% of young males.

A lot of reasons have been cited for high  rate of youth unemployment,  Chief among  them is Ghana’s reliance on imported goods. The absence of major factories to turn Ghana’s abundant raw materials into finished goods means a lot of young people are denied thousands of important jobs these factories would have created. Secondly,  governments have been accused of failing to sufficiently assist the youth. For instance, young people are less likely to be offered loans by banks to start their businesses. High interest rates also discourage young people from applying for bank loans.

 Employers in Ghana complain that universities are not equipping university students with sufficient practical and problem solving skills required by industries.  Senior High School leavers are considered less equipped than their tertiary counterparts to land decent, well-paying jobs.

 To reduce the rate of youth employment, the government has introduced  two big initiatives: tax exemptions for entrepreneurs who are 35 years and below for a period of 3 to 5 years and a mass employment program named the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), which is expected to employ 100,000 young people with degree and diploma certificates. Still, there remains four or five times that number without jobs.

Tackling youth unemployment in Ghana would require the active participation of multiple stakeholders, including grassroots Non-Governmental Organizations(NGOs) operating urban and remote communities in Ghana. The foremost role of grassroots NGOs would  be collecting, analyzing and disseminating accurate data on youth unemployment in communities they operate in. There are concerns that unemployment numbers put out by government agencies are not accurate. Community-by-community data from these NGOs will give a better picture of the skills set and inadequacies of Ghana’s young labor force.

The second role of the NGOs in the fight against joblessness would  be providing input to agenda setting and policy development processes. Key among the issues that must be pushed into the policy statement is widespread and sustained employment creation initiatives for   young women in Ghana and laws that protect women in the workplace.

 NGOs can also raise funds to organize vocational and technical training programs that would equip young people with skills and capital that will empower them to   start their own businesses. Grassroots NGOs can  use advocacy to mobilize public support for policies and initiates that will prioritize the empowerment of young people with quality education training and decent employment. 

 NGOs  would  also have the responsibility of monitoring and evaluating policy initiatives implemented to reduce youth joblessness in their local communities and across the nation.

THE PECULIAR LIFE OF A GHANAIAN ANIMATOR

“My battery is dead; I would have shown you the trailer”. Comfort Arthur points animatedly to a laptop in the bag she has set on the table before us.

The baggy jeans, high-top sneakers, and the African cotton fabric she has  woven neatly around her hair, are telling of her multi- cultural upbringing - as a Ghanaian who has lived the U.K for many years - than her accent, which however, is authentically British-Ghanaian.  

She plays the trailer on her phone and hands it to me to watch. It is a 47- second video of her debut, animated film “The Peculiar Life of a Spider”.

She is hoping to release it in Ghana next year.

“It is a dark comedy that tells the tragic story of Kwaku Ananse. In summary, she explains, after a terrible accident Kwaku Ananse has to go through reconstruction”

The restructuring leaves Ananse with four legs. The Peculiar Life of a Spider follows Ananse as he struggles with depression and a new identity.  

Ms Arthur, a talented, once cartoon-mad artist was drawn to animation                                                                                                                       while studying illustration at the Central St. Martin School of Arts in London.

She discovered that telling stories with immovable images was not enough.

                                                                                                                

“I said to myself, let me try and get my images to move”. And she did, by enrolling for a Master’s Programme in Animation at the Royal College of Arts in the U.K.

For her MA project, she created a 2D animation film titled Mad Val, about a middle-aged man, George Griffin, who shares a flat with an unruly woman called Val.

It was a dream-come-true. Her new characters could now strut, get a beer from the fridge and even sing.

                                                                                                                                                   

A storyteller at heart, Ms Arthur considers content more important than form or technique. And she stays  true to that in all her works.

“Animation doesn’t have to be Disney-like. She says. The story is what pushes animation”. 

“I am not saying technique is not important, she adds. But I will choose story telling over technique”

The huge beam she has worn throughout the interview dims the moment I mention screening and financing and women in animation.

“I’d like to see more female animators like we have in England. There aren’t many females doing animation in Ghana, which is sad”, she says ruefully.

She confines she has had a horrid time trying to get a venue to premiere her film. Venues that are renowned as safe havens for artists are surprisingly either expensive or not receptive to her kind of work.

These challenges notwithstanding, her enthusiasm and thrill about her work have not dulled. Instead, she believes she would be more successful at getting her film screened at art and film festivals around the world.

With that, she smiles - Her beautiful, happy beam retracing its steps back onto her face.

The Peculiar Life of a Spider was written by Judith Affran and voiced by Kwaku Boateng Ankomah (Beasts of No Nation).

Music is by Kofi (I Am Beat menace) Ansah

IS THIS SEAT TAKEN?- there are over 400,000 children in Ghana who do not have access to education

International Human Rights Day is marked every year on 10 December to commemorate the day in 1948 when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  A milestone document in the history of human rights- it sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights of all persons in the world that are to be protected .



The theme for Human Rights Day 2015 is "Our Rights. Our Freedoms. Always". 
 The four freedoms are: freedom from fear, freedom of speech, freedom of worship and freedom from want.



The focus was  on "freedoms" – recalling the four freedoms that are the cornerstone of  the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and two major human rights covenants: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols articulated in 1941 by President Franklin D Roosevelt in his "four freedoms speech" to the US Congress.

In 2014, Amnesty International recorded and investigated human rights abuses in 160 countries and territories around the world. Here are some of the most shocking statistics uncovered:

• War crimes or other violations of the "laws of war" were carried out in at least 18 countries.

• Refugees and migrants were - and still are - at particular risk. More than 3,400 people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in 2014.

• Armed groups committed abuses in 35 countries.

• Nearly three-quarters of governments, around 119 countries out of 160, arbitrarily restricted freedoms.

• 82% (131 out of 160) of countries tortured or otherwise ill-treated people.

As has become the ritual on a day as important as this,the world's focus was on abuses against women, children and the vulnerable.

The war in syria, Ukraine-Russian conflict and the refugees crisis  coupled with media reports of women being raped in refugees camps scattered across Europe shaped discussions ,especially on social media.

The controversial matter of police brutality against blacks in the United States and the "Black Lives Matter" movement that was birthed from came  to the fore in conversations. 

  GHANA

In Ghana, the day was marked with a national dialogue on the plight of older females,children with disabilities and persons with mental problems accused of witchcraft.

Nana Lye Luther,the minister of Children and Social Protection-whose ministry is organised this year's event in Ghana- said the country intends to use thus day to deepen national attention on these issues.

Making these three priority means there are other equally  important topics that would be sidelined.

At an exhibition to commemorate the Human Rights day, students, teachers and parents of Lincoln Community School created special chairs to represent historically barbaric violations of human rights from the war in  Syria to apartheid in South Africa.

Artists also paid homage to victims of  Nanking massacre.

Exhibition at lincoln community School to commemorate Human Rights Day inspired "Jews in Krakow Ghetto Project"

      

Tribute to victims of the war in Syria

     

  

Right to food, clothing and shelter

Every person has the right to education

Access to clean water is a human right

HISTORY

 To commemorate jewish Holocaust in Krakow in 2005, architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak  designed 33 steel and cast iron chairs (1.4m high )  and 37 smaller chairs ( 1.2 m high ) to be placed at squares and bus tops- each chair represent 1,000 victims of the Holocaust.

The chairs  symbolises the deception used by the Nazis to convince their victims that they were simply being "resettled" & they should bring their personal & household belongings. Many brought full sets of furniture.


It is also to remember the uncertainty victims felt,  as thousands of people were meant to stand each day during the inhumane "selection process" that took place on the square, not knowing if they would return to their beds or sent to a death camp.

IS THIS SEAT TAKEN?

I came out of the exhibition thinking :If Ghana were to have its own "Jews in Krakow Ghetto" inspired exhibition to mark international  Human Rights Day, who will these chairs represent?

I figured they will be a lot.

According to the World Bank Development Indicators 2014, the total number of  females not enrolled in either primary or secondary schools stands at 207,128. At a figure of 221, 476, more males are out of school than females.

This means there are 428,604 young people of school going age  missing out on education because of poverty and lack of  schools in their communities. 

If we decide to honour each child with a seat like the holocaust victims, we will run out of squares and bus stops to situate them.

Th reality  that  a child's  inability to assess education is  not perceived as a human right violation is  one of  the greatest injustices of this world.