A month’s intensive creative arts vacation camp to train young people in dance, drama, basket weaving, bead designing, batik and tie-dye, sports and personal hygiene and grooming, has opened in Accra.
The camp is being organised by Values for Life, a non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with the National Commission on Culture at the Community Youth Cultural Center (CYCC) at Maamobi.
Participants will also have the opportunity to interact with renowned personalities in the arts and entertainment industry and would be also be given hands-on training in areas of special interest to them.
The camp, the fifth of its kind, is to bridge the gap between formal education and home training and to keep the youth away from vices during the vacation.
The Director of Value for Life, Gloria Ofori, said though the academic curriculum was important, the youth must also devote some time to activities outside the usual schoolwork since those pursuits were also enlightening and would make them stand tall amongst their colleagues.
She said it was necessary to mentor and nurture the youth to use their talents positively since these would turn out to be their sources of income.
The Deputy Minister for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Dzifa Abla Gomashie, officially opened the camp.
She expressed her support to the idea of young people developing interest in co-curricular activities in order to gain exposure to areas not covered in the academic curriculum.
According to her, people in disciplines such as the arts, entertainment and sports are among the most successful in the world.
“Every child has a special talent that must be fully harnessed and the classroom alone is not enough to unveil these talents,” the deputy minister said.
“There are children who may not perform very well in class but have hidden talents that do not manifest in the classroom. There is therefore a need to provide a platform for such children,” she added.
Guests included actresses Nana Ama McBrown, Vivienne Achor, Irene Opare and other stakeholders in the entertainment industry.