Revive interest in fashion industry to create jobs

The Corporate Communications Manager of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Emmanuel Agyei Arthur, has called for a national interest in developing the fashion industry. 

He said that was because the industry had the capacity to make the youth self-employed, while earning foreign exchange for the country through exports.

“I wish to encourage the state to get real interest in fashion to create self-employment because it has a lot of weight and opportunities for export and if all these things are shaped well, I belief businesses will grow,” he said.

He gave the advice at the 4th graduation ceremony of The Insight Fashion Training (IFT) held at Kasoa in the Central Region.

The event saw the graduation of five students who were honoured with certificates for successfully completing their programmes. 

Dire statistics

Mr Arthur noted that the fashion industry had the potential to create employment to overcome the country’s dire unemployment numbers.

“It came out for the first quarter that about 13.4 million people were unemployed and by the third of next quarter, the number had moved to 13.9 million.

The world month report on under employment pushed the figure at 50 per cent and that means that even when people are employed, they are underemployed,” he explained.

To mitigate this, he called on both the government and private investors to make available startup capital to young people who had acquired skills in fashion and other areas to be able to start their own ventures to counter the illusion that the government will create jobs for them at all times.

Misconceptions

Mr Arthur also urged the youth to overcome the popular misconception that anything that had to do with technical or vocational education was for unintelligent people.

“In our country, they think that when you are weak in mind, you have to go to a technical school but I want you to put this on record that if you are weak, you cannot design all these things we are witnessing today at this event.

“You cannot create some designs when you are weak in mind so when you hear of the Georgio Amarnis and the rest,they are people who can think and create things from abstract level that can become a reality and we wear so it takes a great mind to do that,” he said.

Mr Arthur,therefore, commended the institute for training young people to be independent and create their own jobs, thereby doing its part to overcome unemployment in the country.

Initiative

Launched in July 2018, the institute, founded by Mr Ebenezer Aidoo, offers a two-year training programme aimed at exposing students to both theoretical and practical aspect of fashion.

Mr Aidoo stated that the initiative was inspired by the desire to wear clothes and having it .

He added that fashion was in great demand and had a special connection with everyone.

“I believe every human being believes in clothing and cannot do without it’’.

He further mentioned that the weakness of the average Ghanaian designer and the lack of communication to customers relating to the timely delivery of finished work inspired him to venture into fashion the industry.

The founder challenged the graduating students to go out to the fashion world and make a difference.

‘’Don’t shy away from taking tasks that others think may be impossible.

Belive in your abilities and the world will be at your feet,’’he added.  

Graduate

A graduating student, Matsi Mawuli Foster could not hide his excitement and stated that the training had helped him to be skillful and humble.

He has plans of venturing into his own business with the skills acquired from the school.

“Even with a lot of uncertainties ahead of us, we know that the challenges we faced will never stop us from doing our best to fulfill our dreams in the fashion world”, he said.