By : Frederick Larbi
The Youth Support Podium in collaboration with the Eastern Regional Secretariat of National Youth Authority(NYA) h commenced an alternative livelihood programme in Beads and Sandal Making for students in Kyebi school for the deaf. The Programme is geared towards providing students who are Persons with Disability(PWD) such skills to leverage on during and after school which would help them to start their entrepreneurial path. Following the challenge that such students go through the same educational curricula as the ordinary educational schools, they are compelled to compete well with other “normal” students and in the end are not able to find other meaningful means of living after school. Thus through the NYA’s mission to provide relevant and conducive environment that defines and supports the implementation of effective frontline youth empowerment practices, this programme would help such students create value and generate internally generating funds for themselves and family.
The Eastern Regional Director of NYA, Mrs Marian Mansah Minnah iterated since such Persons with Disabilities withdraw from the society and are isolated , the NYA has taken keen interest in empowering them to be assets for the society to be relied on so they could be part of them, benefiting from their talents and in turn promoting sustainable development for all.
Group Photograph with NYA ER Director(Mrs. Marian Minnah- red middle, Philantropist Robert Holmes, UK and Albert Freeman Aikins, YSP Director(Fourth right) 
Trainee Students (PWD’s) during the Opening Session 
Assistant Headmistress giving the Welcome Address 
Exhibition of Products made by Students 
A student receiving Certificate of Participation 
A group photograph of the entire Team after the Programme
The Visionary and Director of Youth Support Podium indicated that as part of the organization’s initiative to a become unique Civil Society Organization responsive to the empowerment needs of Ghanaian youth, particularly Persons with Disabilities in the Abuakwa South Municipal Assembly, focus would be geared towards ensuring their access to COTVET and TVET programmes. In collaboration with the Abuakwa South Municipal Assembly, agribusiness development and other alternative livelihood programmes would be implemented in the long run to help facilitate the activities of the school with support from national organizations like the NYA, Development Partners, Philanthropists, and other investors.