The Chief Justice, Justice Anin Yeboah, has charged Ghanaian youth to consider themselves as the ones with the key to the development of the nation if it is to reach the heights of other nations they admire.
According to him, the developed world is what it is today because of the contributions of its youth and adults alike, stating that “It took the efforts of people like you, some only a few years older than some of you here today, to produce those inventions, those ideas and those projects that have made some countries answer to the description of ‘developed’.”
The Chief Justice was speaking to participants at the annual Chief Justice’s Mentoring Programme which was under the theme ‘I pledge myself to the service of Ghana’.
The programme is designed to inspire young people to take up service to the nation, whether in the Judiciary or in other equally noble endeavours for purposes of building the nation.
It drew participants from 10 Junior and Senior High Schools, the School for the Blind, Akropong and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), ‘Orange ‘Girls.
The First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, in a speech delivered on her behalf by Barbara Oteng Gyasi, chairperson of the board of directors of the Minerals Commission, urged the participants to remain committed to their dreams and aspire for excellence because for Ghana to survive, all her citizens, both young and old, must be at their very best.
She urged them not to be discouraged by the country’s challenges but rather envision a future in which they take on and defeat these challenges better than those who have come before them.
Country Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Barnaba Yisa, in his remarks read on his behalf, indicated that UNFPA is delighted to have been associated with the “Chief Justice Mentoring Programme” over the last five years.
Justice Eric Kyei Baffour and Justice Georgina Mensah Datsa, both Justices of the Court of Appeal, Kathleen Addy, Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Yaw Oppong, Director of the Ghana School of Law and Yaw Acheampong Boafo, President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), took turns to encourage the students and other participants.