This project will train and equip female school drop outs with adequate entrepreneurial knowledge and skills with focus on agriculture and other vocational trades. Students will receive business start-up capital per their business plans upon graduation to launch and run their own private businesses, be employed by Train UP A Child (TUAC), other local organizations, companies or continue in the mainstream education at the point where they dropped out from school.
Gender inequality in education affects both girls and boys, and women and men, but girls and women are still more often disadvantaged. In Cameroon, approximately 15% of boys of primary school age are out of school compared to 19% of girls of the same age and nearly 33% of female youths of secondary school age are out of school compared to 22% of male youths of the same age. Poverty, geographical isolation, minority status, early marriage and pregnancy, gender-based violence are the main causes.
We will train and equip female school drop-outs with adequate knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship with focus on agriculture and other trades. By setting up school-based businesses that blend vocational education with entreprenuership, a training ground for students and a means of finance for TUAC will be created. Students upon graduation within 3-6 months are offered start-up capital per their business plan to commence their own private business or gain employment in other existing business
100% of graduates will be "productively engaged," and thus on a path toward economic success within 4 months of graduation. This means they have either: i) started their own small enterprises (to graduate, each student must have developed a viable business plan, for which he/she obtains a line of credit); ii) found responsible jobs in the modern agricultural sector, iii) are spreading their knowledge as rural extension agents or teachers at other schools. It becomes a 'Pool for Development' .
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).