Let’s develop confidence in the youth – Amissah-Arthur

Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has emphasised the need to develop confidence in the youth to help tackle the nation’s challenges.

He said since the young people were the nation’s future, it was important that they cultivated values that would enable them to become agents of change.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur made the call at the Gold Award Ceremony under the Head of State Awards Scheme at the Flagstaff House in Accra.

This year’s award, which was on the theme: “Celebrating the Achievements of Young People” was to honour the youth who, through volunteerism, selfless service and hard work, have made a difference in the lives of members of their community.

Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, who is on a three-day visit to Ghana, joined the Vice President to present the awards to the recipients.

The award started in 1936 as the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award and had been adopted by about 140 countries with about 10 million members.

In all 96 young people who dedicated their time to developing their ability and skills to help their communities received this year’s Gold Award.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur said the Government would continue to invest in the youth as it was convinced that investing in them was the best way to use the state’s resources.

He said that was why government continually developed, designed, and implemented social intervention programmes to empower and build the competences of the youth.

He said the Head of State Awards encouraged the young people to be patriotic and perform services to help their community members.

Prince Edward expressed delight that more young people were being honoured for their voluntarism and dedicated service to make a difference in the lives of people.

He said even though the award was to recognise individual achievement, their success had been attained with support from their parents, relatives and friends among others who needed to be commended.

“Today is their day and we should be proud of what they have done in making a difference in their communities,” he said.

Prince Edward encouraged the awardees to inspire the youth to try and do more for their communities.

He said over the last 10 years more than four million young people had embarked on journeys that merit recognition adding that two million young people had so far received the Gold Award.

He expressed the hope that the number would double in the next 10 years.

Nii Lante Vanderpuje, the Minister of Youth and Sports, urged the youth to take the education they received under the awards scheme seriously to transform their way of doing things and make them agents of change within the society.

He said the training they had gone through should enhance their commitment,  sacrifice and love for one and country and work hard to change lives.

Nii Lante Vanderpuje gave the assurance that the Ministry would support the awardees with all the things they required to be agents of change and ensure that more young people were supported to win the award and help transform society.

Source: GNA