Today some part of the world, specially the Arab world has witness social unrest because of the youth being unemployed. The social unrest may soon affect other parts of the world where unemployment is causing socio-economic havoc in the society. Young graduates are finding very difficult to secure jobs for their living. They are anxious and have realised that their future is not bright. This lead to social vices among them, in return has negative in return has negative impact on the socio political system in the countries affected.
Sub-Sahara Africa is not left out of this threat. The African political leaders should start as soon as possible to tackle the problem by elaborating a policy on Entrepreneurship (Like National Youth Entrepreneurship Project which is supported by the World Bank in Ghana), which should take into account both the youth and the existing Entrepreneurs, for job and wealth creation.
The youth unemployment should not be a problem to political Leaders alone to solve. Civil Society, the Corporate organisations should also be concerned. They should lead the crusade against the youth unemployment, using Entrepreneurship as one of the best tools available. Experienced Entrepreneurs, members of Civil Society, Religious Leaders and Professionals in the Private Sector should organise workshops, seminars to educate, train and guide the youth in Entrepreneurship (like Springboard in Ghana). The workshops should take into account both rural and urban young people, and should emphasise on pragmatic approach to Enterprise Development.
For what concerns the youth (secondary school students, undergraduates, and graduates) is their attitude. They should have the right attitude towards issues and adapt themselves to changes. If their parents got employed easily after graduating from school years back, they should not expect the same opportunity today. They should think of having their own businesses or companies. To do this they should first and foremost inject discipline in their personal finances. Saving one third of their pocket money or any monetary gains towards the setting up of their own businesses in future is the first bold step to guarantee a bright future.
To be an entrepreneur or be employable, the African youth should know that they have to acquire skills, and in reality, skills are acquired out of the classroom. This does not mean to put a stop to schooling (Don’t forget knowledge is power). The youth can acquire their skills by working for SMEs in their communities during their long vacations. These temporally jobs should enable them to learn how businesses are organised and managed. They should not focus on the money they could get; they should rather pay attention to the working experience they could gain.
Young garduates should not expect employment in corporate organisations immediately after their schooling. What they have to do while looking for a job, is to offer little business services to people and business communities. Young graduates could come together as 3 member-group to offer these services. For example, a group of an accountant, an agric engineer and a marketing professional could supply agricultural produce to market women, supermarkets or other agro processing industries. This could be transformed into a serious structured viable business ventures, and could be replicated in other areas like construction, transportation, food processing, education, finance, and so on (How to generate business ideas).
It is the responsibility of the African youth to be dynamic and proactive in dealing with issues related to their employment and self-development. The African youth should take avantage of INTERNET to do research, train themselves and do transparent business on-line.
The secret is to start small and be disciplined, and the sky will be the limit.
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