Madina Job Center: Lawyer Francis Sosu’s initiative solving unemployment

Lawyer Francis-Xavier Sosu, Member of Parliament for the Madina Constituency initiative towards tackling the issue of unemployment has been of great relieve to both young men, women, adolescent, among others in his constituency since he was elected as a lawmaker.

The initiative dubbed – madinajobcenter.com, launched in November 2020, he says has been taken shape and is thriving to the highest point of score, helping to employ the teeming youth in his constituency aiming to attain greater heights.

Speaking on Good Morning Ghana last Thursday, 23rd September, 2021 hosted by Dr. Randy Abbey, the lawmaker said the initiative geared towards alleviating poverty and promoting decent work in addition to economic growth in the Madina Constituency was motivated during his campaign season to be a lawmaker.

“When I was doing the campaign, a lot of people were saying that we don’t have jobs. To the extent that, some were even telling me you can come and construct all our roads, you can do all the gutters, if we don’t have jobs, what are we going to eat? How can we survive? I then understood the dignity of a person is taken if he/she doesn’t have anything doing. So I initiated the Madina job centre – www.madinajobcentre.com. All what I needed was to use my office as the Member of Parliament to do 3 things, to tackle the unemployment rise in the constituency.

“As we speak now, there are over 6,000 people applying for various jobs on the website with about 2, 000 of them successfully connected to jobs. That’s one of the ways I felt we could help the people and to connect them to the right jobs. Apart from the job connection, we have the skills training, others who needed to enhance their skills to get a job, so all what such people also needed was some addition of training. From January till now, we’ve trained about 100 young men and women in fields of their choice.”

He added, “The last part of this initiative is the apprenticeship part – again with the nature of our society, not everyone has the opportunity to get to some level of education, some don’t have the certificate. They want to learn some apprenticeship works but the connection is not there for them, as we speak now, there are over 100 women, and men in various apprenticeship works. Some are in the make-up business, sowing, among others. I think every politician has a role to play in reducing the tension among young people when it comes to the lack of job and it is a critical duty we must do passionately as politicians.”

Address

The private legal practitioner further on the show called on the government and his fellow politicians to take positive and concrete steps to address the issue of youth unemployment in the country adding that, that done would help to reduce the level of desperation, frustration and hopelessness among the youth.

“There are problems and that is why we have leadership, anytime there is one particular issue persisting for long without any solution then it shows there is critically leadership failure. I think our position as a country is a combination of leadership failure, that has led us to where we are and if you find yourself in any leadership position, we shouldn’t feel too great considering the high level of unemployment crisis we have in the country. The issue stops with us in leadership and we cannot skip blame for the consistency. The political class must take the major responsibility and solve the issue truthfully.”

Change

Calling on religious bodies to also engage in the fight against the menace, Lawyer Francis-Xavier Sosu said youth unemployment had become one of the greatest dangers the country is faced with and there is the need for religious bodies to also address the issue with the attention it deserved.

“Religion has become one of the major concerns towards unemployment. Many job places have been converted into church avenues. I preach also but false balance is an abomination to God. Instead of searching for job to do, and do it with all your strength, if you spend all your time in a prayer camp praying, I’m sorry, it will not balance, you’ll finish praying and you’ll be hungry and you’ll die in poverty.

“A lot of our religious leaders have also contributed to unemployment and have not been able to shape the minds of our people to find jobs. There are critical moments people are supposed to be searching for jobs, and you’ll see them religiously engaged. Every religious leader, and its God duty to let your followers know that the issue of job is that fundamental and that, if you cannot do anything with your hand, that is where the devil finds job for you.”

Life Experience

Sharing a touching but motivating story to send a signal to many youths on the several discomfort situations he had to experience to attain his current feet, the lawmaker revealed life for him as a young boy was difficult but with continuous push, he paved through successfully.

He narrated, “Life from the beginning was difficult. From the age of 6, I was on the street hustling, because of that, I couldn’t start school early, I begun nursery at age 8 – that was the first time I was going to learn ABCD. At JHS 3, I was living at the Malata market, I sleep there at night and hustle in the morning for school. I was given scholarship from the Village of Hope Orphanage during the secondary school days to any higher level of school I can go – that was where the pressure went off me. I was then off the street. This has been the story.

“In addition, you may be born poor but it doesn’t mean you’re poor, if you’re willing to step up with determination and hard work, you can make a big change. Born poor doesn’t mean you should die poor, so you must challenge yourself. Your family limit must not be your limitation and rise up above those limitations.”