The first batch of 51 students at the Wesleyan Entrepreneurship Training School, Sekondi Campus, have graduated after undergoing rigorous theoretical and practical studies in entrepreneurial development.
They graduated from courses such as fish farming, poultry, bead making, fashion design, stationery and general goods, carpentry, transport business, and crop farming.
Others are barbering, piggery and feed production, palm oil business, tomato powder production, graphic designing, photography, catfish production, and fabrication among others.
Miss Susana Serwah Boateng emerged as the overall best student in cosmetics, hair care products and feeding custard oil.
The graduands received awards, certificates of completion, and GHc40,000.00 from the Methodist Church Ghana for their patience and sacrifices to equip themselves with employable skills.
The Most Reverend Professor Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church Ghana, said one of the visions of the Church was to equip a new generation of innovative entrepreneurs to create a thriving and sustainable businesses to stem the unemployment canker and drive economic growth.
He commended the Sekondi Diocese and its leaders for the pioneering role in this novel initiative and gave the assurance that the Entrepreneurship Training School would be replicated in every diocese across the country.
He, thus, asked the Social Services arm of the Church to organise refresher courses for the graduands, and advised them to form cooperatives to get financial support as start-ups from the Church.
The Very Rev. Isaac Kwame Ghartey, Superintendent Minister of the Anaji Estate Circuit of the Methodist Church, lauded the Right Rev. Emmanuel Kwesi Ansah, the Diocesan Bishop of Sekondi, for pushing the agenda for the Entrepreneurial Training School.
He said the Church did not only cater for the spiritual well-being of its members but their physical and economic endeavours, adding that the entrepreneurial training had become a practice for the Circuit having trained 30 people in the last couple of years.
The superintendent minister said Ghana was becoming an entrepreneurial-driven economy, hence, the need for church to train business leaders and nurture a vibrant business community within the Diocese.
Very Rev. Ghartey said: “Society cannot wait on the government alone for employment, and developed nations thrive on entrepreneurial initiatives to find solutions to problems bedeviling society.”
Dr Justice Amoh, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of JUSTMOH Construction Limited, who chaired the occasion, urged the graduands to be catalyst for transformation by creating an innovative entrepreneurship grounded on discipline for sustainable growth and prosperity.
He donated an unspecified amount of money to the church as his contribution to the training programme.
Miss Susana Serwah Boateng, the overall best student, on behalf of her colleagues expressed gratitude to the Church for equipping them with entrepreneurial mindset which she said, would help create employment opportunities for them and others in their communities.