SOS Children’s Villages Ghana trains youth
Twenty-five young men and women at Chorkor, a suburb of Accra, have completed a one-year training programme in vocational skills to make them economically stable.
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The trainees, including 16 young women, were trained in programmes including hairdressing, catering, embroidery, decoration, tailoring and computer networking.
The initiative, facilitated by the SOS Children’s Villages, Ghana, and a social development organisation, formed part of the organisation’s programme to empower the youth economically through technical, vocational and educational training (TVET).
The five-year programme, supported by the Dutch Government, started in 2011 and about 92 young men and women at Chorkor, have so far been trained.
The initiative is meant among other things to encourage the youth at Chorkor to choose technical and vocational education training (TVET) as a positive path of progression in life.
Chorkor is one of the communities in the Accra metropolis with a number of people in the low income group, while many of the youth are also unemployed.
As a result of this, a number of children in the area abandon the classroom to go fishing to fend for themselves and support their families.
Working with skills
Speaking at a graduation ceremony for the last batch of the trainees in Accra last Friday, the Project Officer, Ms Theresa Boatemaa Ofosu, said the graduands were expected to make effective use of the skills acquired to earn income to reduce the social burden on their families and the community as whole.
The SOS Children’s Villages is a social development organisation that works to meet the needs and protect the interest and rights of children who lack parental care. It also assists children at the risk of losing parental care.
Ms Ofosu said the initiative was to give a helping hand to junior and senior high school graduates who could not continue their education due to various social challenges.
Training
She explained that the organisation paid the training fees and provided training kits, while caregivers also supported the trainees with funds for their upkeep, and provided them with other materials to enable them to go through the programme successfully.
In the course of the training, Ms Ofosu said the trainees were counselled and educated on how to start and grow a business on a small scale and also trained in customer care, resources and funds mobilisation and basic record keeping.
The Chairman of the Programme Management Committee, Mr Stephen Okuley Tetteh, urged the youth to take advantage of the skills they had acquired and make a living.
On behalf of the beneficiaries, Ms Diana Quaye expressed gratitude to the SOS Children’s Villages for the support given to them.