The Decent Work Project of the International Labour Organisation has held a five-day training workshop for 53 members of the Ghana National Association of Tailors and Dressmakers at Gomoa Aboso near Agona Swedru.
The workshop, the first batch in a series, was to upgrade the participants' sewing skills to promote competitiveness, expansion and to create jobs through apprenticeship.
Addressing the workshop, Mr Isaac Kingsley Ahunu-Armah, District Chief Executive for Gomoa East, advised people in the private sector of the
economy to regard themselves as worthy contributors to national development.
�It is not only people on government payroll can be regarded as working,� the DCE stressed and advised those in the private sector to set aside some daily or weekly fund as their salary to be collected at the end of the month.
He said when they did that they would be more committed to their work and it would encourage them to compete with their counterparts on government payroll.
Mr Ahunu-Armah urged the participants to erase society's perception that tailors and dressmakers were dishonest people by honouring their promises to their customers.
He urged them to use the new sills acquired at the workshop to train their apprentices and to put their knowledge at the disposal of their
colleagues who did not attend the workshop.
Mr Philip Acheampong, District Planning Officer urged the participants to make good use of the workshop to enable them to honour their tax
obligations to the Assembly.
Mr Acheampong who is also the Focal Person of the Sub-Committee on Production and Gainful Employment (SPGE) of the ILO Decent Work Project,
urged the participants to take the work as business and, therefore, their source of livelihood.
He urged them to make their impact felt for the ILO to realise that they had made worthwhile the intervention by giving money to the district
for building the capacity of the Small Business Associations and Enterprises.
The participants were also taken through HIV and AIDS, Credit Union Concept and the National Health Insurance Scheme.