The Executive Director of Our Lady of Mercy Community Services (OLAM) , Mr Emanuel Atiiga, has observed that the spate of inter-tribal and clan conflicts beimg recorded in some parts of the country have the tendency of indoctrinating such negative acts into the youth to continue to chart same negative course.
The Executive Director who made the observation during the graduation and exhibition ceremony held in Navrongo in the Kassena-Nankana Municipal in the region on Monday, stressed that if care is not taken to address the situation now, conflict would continue to be a cyclical issue in the region since the youth are most likely to be initiated by the conflict actors.
He told those who are fond out perpetuate such acts to be ware that no development can thrive in the atmosphere of conflict and cited for instances that Bawku which used to be one of epicenter of Business would have been grown rapidly than its current states.
“Most of the financial institutions, schools and renowned business establishments have vacated the area and therefore discouraging more investors to invest in the conflict environment.”, he stressed.
He cited for instance that the Kassena-Nankana Municipal Assembly has been spending huge sums of money on the Doba -Kandiga conflict that should have been channeled to develop other sectors of the economy in the Municipality to help improve upon livelihoods.
He urged the chiefs and people in the area to help resolve land and chieftaincy disputes in the area to pave the way for development and cited that his outfit had a lot of interventions to implement to compliment Government’s efforts in development but cannot do that in the midst of conflicts.
He said over the years his outfit has been providing Vocational Skills trainings in the areas of batik-tie and dye, weaving, dressmaking, beds making in addition of providing the beneficiaries with start-up kids to establish their own businesses.
He said over the years OLAM with funding support from the Germany Embassy in Ghana and Open Society Initiative for West Africa, OSIWA-Senegal had so far trained over 1000 of whom most have established their own enterprises.
The Kassena-Nankana Municipal Chief Executive , Mr Joseph Adongo, lauded the NGO for the support and reiterated the need for peaceful co-existence to help fast-track development of the area.
He stated that Vocational and Technical Education was the key to addressing the unemployment situation in the country and stressed the need for parents to encourage their wards to get enroll in such programmes for the training of them to acquire the needed skills for employment.
