Twenty- five (25) marginalized girls in Otwetiri Community in Akuapem North Municipality of the Eastern region have graduated from three -months vocational skill training project dubbed Strategic Approach to Girls’ Education (STAGE) Project.
The project funded by UK/AID and Department for International Development (DFID) under the “Leave No Girl Behind (LNGB)” program of its Girls’ Education Challenge window II is being implemented by a consortium led by World Education Incorporated (WEI) which is the lead NGO based in Accra and working with 7 NGOs including International Child Development.
Program (ICDP) in 31 districts across the Central, Volta, Eastern, Northern, Upper West, Upper East, and Oti regions of Ghana.
The target beneficiaries elope, girls, teenage mothers, teenage pregnant girls, those who have never attended school, dropouts, victims of child marriage, girls living in extreme poverty, girls who are victims of gender violence, girls living in remote locations with no physical access to schooling, girls with disabilities, and fostered girls.
In the Eastern Region, 336 of these marginalized girls drawn from 13 communities are benefiting from the project.
The beneficiaries are being trained in pastry making, facial-make-ups and pedicures and manicures, soap making, and hair braiding to enable them to get sustainable livelihood to alleviate them from the quagmire of poverty.
The first batch of 25 beneficiary girls at Otwetiri, a farming community in the Eastern Region has been graduated after successfully acquiring vocational skills. Speaking at the graduation ceremony, the Country Director of International Child Development Programme (ICDP), Joyce Larnyo said the project aims at supporting marginalized girls to improve their lives through education by achieving and acquiring literacy and numeracy skills; relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for life and work, and training in various vocational and life skills.
She said the beneficiaries will be given startups to begin their businesses.
“These girls have gone through a learning process for three months in terms of the accelerated learning program which includes the learning areas that I have just mentioned. And then we give them some startups to start an income-generating activity to leave them out of poverty and give them some skills empowerment to be able to take care of themselves and their family. This project has been going on for the past year and a half and today is our graduation day where we seek to honor our girls.”
The beneficiary girls were given certificates from National Vocational and Training Institute (NVTI).
“That certificate is a nationally recognized certificate that will help them to seek jobs in any skills competence area in terms of either pastries or the food industry bead making and also hairdressing facials and all those skills areas that we have trained them for,” Joyce Larnyo told the media.
She said “we have a vocational center that we have established at Kwamoso a close-by community where we will be monitoring the girls from and all those who have challenges in terms of their marketing skills or they need to do some brush-ups with the skills they have acquired they can come to the center and we for the next six months will be making sure will go round and make sure that they are all embarking on this skills activity. If it is braiding there are braiding, if it facials they are all over the place supporting during occasions.”
Asiedua Joyce, a class three school dropout who was part of the beneficiary said “life has not been easy for me after dropping out of school at class three and gave birth. But now they have taught us how to read and write, and also how to prepare pastries. I can confidently tell you that I now have something to do to get income.”
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Obed Ansah
