Members of the United Hairdressers Association of Ghana (UHAG) have appealed to government and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembles to help provide spaces for graduates completing apprenticeship to operate.
Mrs. Mary Berchie, President of the association who made the appeal said it would empower them to operate their business in a conducive atmosphere to earn income and improve their livelihoods at the 30th Anniversary Celebration and Seminar of the UHAG in Kumasi.
It was on the theme “Empowering women in the cosmetology industry for a better Ghana.”
Mrs Berchie said the association had trained a good number of street girls including; potters free of charge, but most of them ended up in the streets hawking because they did not have capital and spaces to operate.
This, she said led to many of them engaging in promiscuous life styles and other anti-social behaviours that led to increase in early pregnancies.
She said workshops and training programmes were frequently organised by the association for the beauticians to improve their skills noting that the association had plans of training more girls and school dropouts in the villages in cosmetology and needed the support of the government to settle them permanently after training.
Parents must also help to support the young girls after training to begin their own businesses and advised the hairdressers to manage their finances properly, set goals and targets and work to achieve them, by registering their businesses and honouring their tax obligations.
Madam Muniratu Alhassan, a Cosmetologist, said she was recruited and trained by the association in the streets and now owned her own beauty Salon with 11 apprentices, adding that the association had helped her become financially independent.
Concerns raised by most people who spoke during the event indicated that most of the young women they trained to become hairdressers were hawking in the streets because they do not have spaces to operate.
Most of them also do not have capital to operate their own hairdressing salons to earn incomes.
GNA
Please UHAG help and investigate. I am from Kassena -Nankana West in the Upper East (Mirigu). The UHAG Madams are asking their apprentice to pay graduation fee of 400 cedis and also Madam-thank you fee of 600 sedis and other unexplained bills. Please most of the apprentice are school dropouts, lack of parental care. Please we need your help. I am just an observer thank you