The Summit, which is in its fourth year, is held on the 1st of January each year. This year’s was the best so far in terms of organization and patronage.

The SSNIT Conference Room in Takoradi was full to capacity as over 150 youth attended the New Year Summit.

Speakers for this year’s summit were carefully selected from the power, energy and financial sectors.

The first speaker, Kwamina Sagu Ekremet, the QSHE Manager at AI Energy, who doubles as a Leadership and Personal Development Trainer, spoke on how to become a better leader in 2018.

He noted that what Ghana has experienced for the better part of our post-independence history was a deficit of good leadership. He therefore admonished the youth to build their leadership credentials to be able to lead with vision and ambition.

Philip Osei Bonsu, the second speaker, CEO of OBPR Consult who doubles as the Public Relations Officer of the Electricity Company of Ghana, in the Western Region, spoke on how to standout in the marketplace by calling on the youth to recognize the intense competition in the job market and position themselves to be able to compete and standout when given the opportunity.

Philip Osei Bonsu, who’s a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow, who is passionate about youth development, then introduced them to the skill sets needed for one to be employable by 2020.

The main speaker for the day, Richmond Kwame Frimpong, who is an author, a life coach and a motivational speaker of international repute, and also doubles as the Managing Director of Beige Pensions, a member of The BEIGE Group, delivered a presentation on how to make 2018 your best year ever, the DOs and DON’Ts.

He charged the youth to be aware of and appreciate the fundamental laws of life that must be followed to the latter if one wants to be successful in 2018 and beyond.

Some of the participants who were present at the 2017 edition testified about the positive impact of the summit on their lives in the year 2017.

The 2018 edition, which lasted for approximately three hours, was a fulfilling experience for all the participants who promised to act on the principles shared by the various speakers.
–
By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Western Region: Youth urged to start doing at ‘Beginning the Year Right Summit’ appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Philip was selected as an Ignite Speaker to represent the University of San Diego, California. After six weeks of academic institute, leadership training and networking in 38 Universities across the US, all 1000 fellows converged in Washington DC for the 3-day summit.

Philip, who is concerned about the African continent’s biggest challenge of a growing population with fewer jobs, has commenced an initiative in Ghana’s Western Region, where he’s nurturing entrepreneurs, some of whom have commenced their start-ups.

“In my country 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” Osei Bonsu lamented.

“It is my humble opinion that of all the challenges we need to solve as a continent, the most important one is job creation for our youth. This is the safest and most prudent thing to do in order not to undermine the continent’s relative political and social stability. Unemployed youth are likely breeding grounds for criminals, insurgency and terrorism” Osei Bonsu emphasized.

Making reference to an article he read in 2016 on the website of Financial Times titled “Africa’s population boom is both danger and opportunity”, the writer, David Pilling, amongst other things stated that; one of the great structural changes of the coming decades will be the huge relative shift of the global population to Africa.

Philip, who was intrigued by this assertion, researched further to establish that; more than one billion people live in Africa, and roughly the same as in each of Europe and the Americas, although those continents have stopped growing.

He mentioned that, Africa’s population, by contrast, will double to Two billion by 2050, whereas Asia will also add one billion to reach Five billion — and then stop. Africa he said will keep going and by 2100, its population could easily have doubled again, stating that at least four billion of the world’s Eleven Billion people by 2100, will be Africans, as against the current one billion figure.

“It gets really interesting when you consider the growth in the continent’s youthful population; Africa’s population is the youngest at the moment, with a median age of just 20. That compares with 43 in Europe, and by 2035, more than half of all new jobseekers will be Africans. Africa will thus have the largest workforce in the world by 2035— larger than China and India’s. As a result, 1.1 billion people will need jobs on the continent.”

But the question that bothers Osei Bonsu the most; is how the continent can create 1.1bn jobs for these people in just Eighteen (18) years.

He is however of the firm belief that, this challenge can only be surmounted when the continent focuses on raising entrepreneurs – “creating job creators and not job seekers.”

Osei Bonsu elaborated further on what he had done as a communication’s professional, to raise a generation of entrepreneurs among Ghana’s youth population.

“Ghana’s biggest challenge can thus be summed up in one phrase – Jobs for the Youth. Now, as somebody who fundamentally believes in a world where every youth who is able and willing to work must have a job, I had to ACT. So I 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.”

In 2016, Osei and his team got 253 youths to attend their maiden entrepreneurship summit, and many others listened and watched on Radio and TV. With the help of our partners, they secured 25 internship opportunities for the first 25 people to arrive at the venue.

So far, 12 participants have launched their start-ups, majority of them in Agribusiness, and Osei hopes to make this an annual event.

In concluding his presentation, Osei Bonsu rallied his Mandela Washington Fellows, some of whom are equally solving the canker of unemployment through various start-ups in their respective countries, to keep at it, and make the continent a better place.

“I share this story with you knowing that this is not just my story, it is OUR story. It is the African Story. A story of how we can change our continent if we decide to take action. I have never been this hopeful about the future of Africa than I am today. Your individual stories make me hopeful. I am certain that 50 years from now, it will be said that our generation changed Africa for good. Fellows, if we individually do what we have to do, if we make the decisions we have to make, then I am confident that just as Senator Barack Obama told a weary America in 2004, ‘out of a long political darkness, a brighter day shall come.”

About the YALI program

Osei Bonsu was among the forty (40) fellows who participated in the United States of America’s (USA) 2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI).

YALI was launched in 2010 by US president Barack Obama to invest in the next generation of African leaders and nurture them as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship takes young African leaders to the United States for 6 weeks of leadership training and mentoring at twenty U.S. universities and colleges in three areas: business and entrepreneurship, civic engagement and public administration.

About Ignite Talk Series

The Ignite Talk series is an exciting feature of the 2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship Summit. The 3-5 minute, TED Talk-style presentations were a call to action from 40 Mandela Washington Fellows, each representing one of the Institute partners of the program.

Institutes chose their representatives through various forms of competition, with some having their Fellow cohort vote on their speaker, while others had outside professionals or members of the community assist in the selection process.

Presenters were grouped by track – Civic Leadership, Public Management, and Business and Entrepreneurship – and spoke in sessions over two days of the Summit. While many different messages were conveyed, this year’s talks themed around Empowerment, Innovation, and Servant Leadership. The Ignite Talk series highlighted the passion of the Fellows to improve their communities and lead the next generation of African leaders.

Profile of Philip Osei Bonsu

Philip Osei Bonsu is a Corporate Communications Executive, Broadcast Journalist and Entrepreneur. He has over eight years’ leadership and managerial experience in the media and power sector.

Currently, Philip is the Head of Public Relations for the Electricity Company of Ghana in the Western Region, where he focuses on initiating and leading the implementation of Public Relations Strategies that improve the ECG’s corporate image in the region.

Additionally, Philip sits on the Board of Western Waste Limited, a subsidiary of Zoomlion Ghana Limited and hosts Skyy Power FM’s weekend news analysis program, ‘News Review’ on part-time basis. He is also the founder and CEO of OBPR Consult, a PR firm that specializes in Media Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs.

Previously, Philip served as the Brand Manager of Skyy Power fm and doubled as the host of Western Region’s biggest breakfast show, the Jolly Breakfast Show on the same station. At the corporate level, he worked as the Corporate Communications Manager of Skyy Media Group.

In 2015, Philip was named with 29 other young Ghanaians as a young achiever in the ‘Newaccra Achievers Report’ (See:www.newaccra.com/rise)

Philip is a Tullow Scholar who holds an MSc in Corporate Communication and Public Affairs from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. He is also a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow placed in the Business & Entrepreneurship Track at the University of San Diego, California.

Philip is committed to promoting youth development and capacity building in entrepreneurship through the sharing of knowledge and strategic networking. He thus convenes the Western Regional Youth Entrepreneurship Summit to equip the youth with the right entrepreneurial skills to tap into the immense opportunities the region provides.

He hopes to train 10,000 youth in the next ten years. Philip believes entrepreneurs create jobs and boost economies. With many of them, the economic future of Ghana remains bright.

Watch a video of Philip’s presentation

–
By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Ghana’s Osei Bonsu shares experience on nurturing ‘job creators’ at YALI’s Ignite Talks appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Announcing the 2017 cohort of the Mandela Washington Fellows from Ghana, US Embassy Ghana, on Facebook posted a picture of the 40 winners.

YALI was launched in 2010 by US president Barack Obama to invest in the next generation of African leaders and nurture them as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship takes young African leaders to the United States for 6 weeks of leadership training and mentoring at twenty U.S. universities and colleges in three areas: business and entrepreneurship, civic engagement and public administration.

The US Embassy Ghana announced Philip Osei Bonsu’s selection on its Facebook page and outlined his dream to equip the youth with the right entrepreneurial skills to tap into the immense opportunities the Western Region provides, by training 10,000 youths in the next ten years.

Profile of Philip Osei Bonsu

Philip Osei Bonsu is a Corporate Communications Executive, Broadcast Journalist and Entrepreneur. He has over eight years’ leadership and managerial experience in the media and power sector.

Currently, Philip is the Head of Public Relations for the Electricity Company of Ghana in the Western Region, where he focuses on initiating and leading the implementation of Public Relations Strategies that improve the ECG’s corporate image in the region.

Philip also sits on the Board of Western Waste Limited, a subsidiary of Zoomlion Ghana Limited and hosts Skyypower FM’s weekend news analysis program, ‘News Review’ on part-time basis. He is also the founder and CEO of OBPR Consult, a PR firm that specializes in Media Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs.

Previously, Philip served as the Brand’s Manager of Skyy Power FM and doubled as the host of Western Region’s biggest breakfast show, the Jolly Breakfast Show on the same station. At the corporate level, he worked as the Corporate Communications Manager of Skyy Media Group.

In 2015, Philip was named with 29 other young Ghanaians as a young achiever in the ‘Newaccra Achievers Report’ (See: www.newaccra.com/rise).

Philip is a Tullow Scholar who holds an MSc in Corporate Communication and Public Affairs from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. He’s also an alumnus of St. Johns School in Sekondi, and he graduated with 1st class Honors in Linguistics and Theatre Arts from the University of Ghana.

Philip is committed to promoting youth development and capacity building in entrepreneurship through the sharing of knowledge and strategic networking. Upon completion of the Mandela Washington Fellowship, Philip plans to build a world-class Public Relations firm. He also plans to continue facilitating the training of the youth through an annual summit he convenes – the Western Regional Youth Entrepreneurship Summit, the biggest gathering of existing and potential youth entrepreneurs in the region.

–
By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post ECG’s Philip Osei Bonsu; 39 others heading to USA for YALI program appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The sensitization formed part of the week-long celebrations to mark the 28th anniversary of Power Queens Club.

The Power Queens Club is a an association of female workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), who embark on several outdoor events for the benefit of society.

The theme for the celebrations was ‘Integrity in Service Delivery, the role of the Queen’.

Mr. Philip Osei Bonsu, the Public Relations Officer for the Western Regional office of the ECG, introduced the students to Ghana’s Power Supply chain (Generation, Transmission, and Distribution) and ECG’s role in same.

He noted that, educating the young generation in 2nd cycle institutions was part of ECG’s stakeholder engagement and communications strategy.

Other speakers included the Marketing Officer, Queen Sylvestina Araba Annan, who took the students through some energy conservation tips.

Ing. Godwin Yabameh also spoke on some major causes of outages in electrical networks, load management, and some insightful facts about electricity.

The anniversary celebrations witnessed other exciting activities including revenue collection exercises in Agona and Bogoso, a clean-up exercise, and a kenkey party at the regional level of ECG.

The week-long celebration was climaxed with a thanksgiving service at the All Saints Anglican Church in Takoradi.
–
By: citifmonlinec.com/Ghana

The post ECG sensitizes Archbishop Porter Girls SHS on its operations [Photos] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.