{"id":248227,"date":"2016-09-14T14:01:53","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T14:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=248227"},"modified":"2016-09-14T14:01:53","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T14:01:53","slug":"ndc-to-employ-10000-kayayei-mahama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/09\/ndc-to-employ-10000-kayayei-mahama\/","title":{"rendered":"NDC to employ 10,000 \u2018Kayayei\u2019 – Mahama"},"content":{"rendered":"
President John Dramani Mahama has promised that the next NDC administration his watch will train about 10,000 female head porters popularly known as \u2018Kayayei\u2019 for employment if he is retained after the December 7, 2016 general election.<\/p>\n
Kayayei, an ethnic Ga word, is a trade often undertaken by thousands of young female adults who migrate from the northern Ghana to cities like Accra and Kumasi.<\/p>\n
The practice has been in existence in Ghana for decades and children between ages 15 to 18 and\u00a0adults 45 years and above, engage in what is described as a hand-to-mouth job.<\/p>\n
Analysts have suggested the need for government to make the northern part of Ghana economically viable and habitable to minimize the migration.<\/p>\n
But presenting the highlights of the National Democratic Congress\u2019 (NDC) 2016 manifesto in Accra on Tuesday, President Mahama said he intends to employ to about 10,000 of the head porters to give them a decent living.<\/p>\n
According to him, the Kayayei will be part of a new employment model under the newly established Youth Employment Agency (YEA).<\/p>\n
Available research data indicates that some of these Kayayei work in chop-bars (local restaurants), hawk on the streets, assist market women in trading, act as shop assistants and engage in other domestic chores, sometimes menial,\u00a0just to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
Most of them are considered to be non-literate, school dropouts, or young females who have escaped from outmoded socio-cultural practices such as forced marriages and female genital mutilation (female circumcision) among others.<\/p>\n
They live in the streets and in open places whiles engaging in menial jobs such as carrying of heavy loads on their heads.<\/p>\n