Every human being is fearfully and wonderfully made according to the Bible. No human being is useless because God has but in every person gifts that make him or her unique. You have a gift that no one else has in the whole wide world, therefore, you have the ability to do things that no one can match you. The fact that no other person in the universe has the same thumb-print as yours is a clear justification of my point.
If you hone your God-given gift, and put it into use, the most brilliant professor in your gifted field can never match you. I can prove it!
Ashish Thakkar, grew up in Rwanda at the time the country was going through its darkest hour of genocide atrocities. Thakkar dropped out of school at the age of 15, and in less than two decades, turned $5,000 loan given to him by his parents into an over $1 billion conglomerate group. Thakkar, who is now 34 years old is Africa’s youngest billionaire: and says that his biggest regret is not dropping out of school earlier!
Unemployment is undoubtedly one of the major headaches of many nations including developed ones. Nevertheless, I believe there are solutions to every problem under the sun; and unemployment is no exception. All that we need to do is taking a more creative approach to solving problems; and I want us to do a little “thinking outside the box” to find some simple ways of creating employment for our teeming unemployed youth which can help identify and support the Ashish Thakkars of our country.
Over the years, careers such us masonry, carpentry, hair-dressing, fitting, barbering, etc, have been a useful receptacle for youth employment in this country. Youth engaged in these trades could be found in all towns and villages in Ghana. However, there is another area we’ve not paid much attention to – phone repairing.
The mobile phone has become an indispensable tool to our survival; it is now common to find mobile phone users in even the remotest hamlet in this country, but unfortunately our youth have not taken advantage of this huge market by learning the trade of phone repairing.
I did a little research sometime ago, and the following are my findings:
It will take six months to go through a phone repairing apprenticeship at an average fee of GHC500 for the entire duration.
After training, one needs only GHC200 worth of tools to repair hardware aspects of phones, that is repairing phone by dismantling. The software aspect which has to do with decoding, unlocking, flushing, etc , requires a computer and other tools worth about GHC1,000.
For an effective holistic training, MMDAs can link up with the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) for the facilitation of workshops to train participants in entrepreneurial skills, records keeping, costing and pricing; marketing skills, etc. These workshops if done for a group of 50 participants for instance will cost about GHC5,000; putting the cost per participant at GHC100.
Also, special kiosks which may bear the colours of Ghana to serve as phone repairing shops could be procured for beneficiaries at the cost of about GHC1,000 ( creating additional jobs for local carpenters.)
So, in all, there is the need for about GHC3,500 to set up a lucrative business in phone repairing for a youth which would be repaid within a certain period of time.
The Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies should be tasked to facilitate and supervise the programme. Start-up loans from MASLOC, rural banks, etc. could be arranged.
The programme if done well will be visible in every part of the country and a host of our young ones will have a lucrative lifetime career. Beneficiaries with time could expand by selling phones and accessories, and who knows, we may even get phone manufacturers through this intervention. This will definitely be a huge boost to government’s effort to create employment for the youth in our dear country.
