The National Youth Wing of the Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) has paid a capacity strengthening visit to the SMG Collectives in the Upper West Region.
The visit was to interact with the various Collectives of the SMG in the region in a bid to strengthen their capacities for enhanced operations.
The Collectives visited included the SDD University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD UBIDS) Campus Collective, and the Jirapa and Wa town Collectives in Jirapa and Wa respectively.
The National Youth Coordinator of the SMG, Comrade Stone Baiden said the visit was to, among other things, assess the activities of the Collectives, their challenges and the way forward and to encourage members to keep up momentum in the work they do.
“We decided to visit them to find out what activities they have been engaged in, more or less to encourage them to do the work they are supposed to do,” he said.
He added that it was to encourage the student members to take their studies and academic work seriously.
The visit, on Friday, July 7, 2020, firstly saw the National Youth Coordinator led a team to Jirapa where they held interactions with the Jirapa town Collective.
The team later met the SDD UBIDS and Wa Collectives together at the campus of the university where interactive discussions were also held.
Comrade Baiden expressed happiness about the level progress attained by the SDD UBIDS campus Collective so far within the short period of its establishment.
Obviously there are challenges but we believe with the spirit that they have and the commitment that they have, they would be able to surmount it.
“It’s a young Collective. You know, to build an organization or a movement like ours that is not supposed to conform to the system that we have now; it’s not going to be easy. It’s a gradual process and we believe they are doing very well and we are happy about their progress,” Comrade Baiden explained.
He assured the Collectives that the leadership of the Youth Wing and for that matter, the SMG was solidly behind them and encouraged them to stay focused, hopeful and organized.
Convener of the SDD UBIDS Collective, Comrade Sebastian Mbabugri Agumah, in his welcome address, described the visit as historic as it was the first of its kind since the Collective was formally inaugurated in last academic year.
He said the Collective had so far been able to make some strides in areas of membership mobilization, creation of Base Groups (BGs) for study purposes, and regular meetings to discuss study findings.
He, however, lamented the packed nature of academic activities, inability to mobilize funds, and dwindling membership commitment as key challenges that were hindering the effective operations of the SDD UBIDS Collective.
Similarly, the Wa Collective lamented low membership turnout for meetings and mobilization of funds as key challenges.
It however hinted that plans were in place to establish SMG Collectives in selected tertiary educational institutions in the region in addition to the SDD UBIDS.
Socialist Movement of Ghana is a pro-socialism movement that advocates for social ownership of properties as opposed to private ownership.
