OB @33: Philip Osei Bonsu shares his dream for the youth

• Posted on October 10, 2017October 10, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

His online followers always show eagerness to read his perspective of national issues; his on air listeners are always on tenterhooks to hear how he will present matters arising in the Western Region and the nation as a whole; his friends on land mention how they are pepped up anytime they have a chitchat, even the most trivial one.

Philip Osei Bonsu, Electricity Company of Ghana’s (ECG) Western Region Public Relations Officer (PRO) and Skyy Power FM’s ‘News Review’ host is thirty three (33) years today. As part of celebrating this milestone, OB as he is otherwise known by his listeners shares his dream for the Ghanaian youth.

The Mandela Washington Fellow and Tullow Scholar who is passionate about empowering the Ghanaian youth has shared on several platforms his earnest desire to help position the youth to be employers instead of job seekers. As a person “who fundamentally believes in a world where every youth who is able and willing to work must have a job, I had to act!”

Ghana’s biggest challenge

“In Ghana, 48% of the youth (15-34 year olds) have no jobs. This is largely because the Ghanaian system builds job seekers and not job creators. So we have over 300,000 youth leaving our various tertiary institutions chasing for non-existent jobs. Ghana’s biggest challenge can thus be summed up in one phrase – Jobs for the Youth” OB, who doubles as the Chief Executive Officer of OBPR, the leading public relations firm in the Western Region said.

My contribution to solving the challenge

With the disturbing statistics of unemployment in Ghana, Philip “put together a team of young and enthusiastic men and women, and for unemployed youth between 15-35 years in Ghana’s Western Region, we provide a platform for skills training, information sharing and networking that enables them to start their own businesses. Our aim is to demystify entrepreneurship and make it attractive to the youth.”

“This is absolutely important because to be able to create jobs for the 48% unemployed youth in Ghana, we need to rapidly develop young entrepreneurs who can create their own jobs – and jobs for other young people.

Last year, 253 youths attended our maiden entrepreneurship summit and many others listened and watched on Radio and TV. With the help of our partners, we secured 25 internship opportunities for the first 25 people to arrive at the venue. So far, 12 participants have launched their startups, majority of them in Agribusiness. Our commitment is to make this an annual event” Mr. Osei Bonsu revealed.

My dream for the youth

“Today more than 1 billion people live in Africa, roughly the same as in each of Europe and the Americas. Africa’s population, by contrast, will double to 2 billion by 2050. At least 4 bllion of the world’s 11 billion people by 2100 will be African, against just 1 billion today” so the issue of youth employment should be tackled with all seriousness.

Mr. Osei Bonsu shares that his dream is to train 10,000 entrepreneurs in the next decade through seminars and other avenues to help position them to withstand the sharp vicissitudes of employment in the continent.

Author: Nana Kwesi Coomson (www.233times.net) @nkcoomson on Twitter