Provide Skills for Success to Ghanaian Youth

One of the goals of our Vocational Training Institute sponsorship of area young people is to make sure that we KEEP our young students in school. Over the last few months, we recognised that some of our youngest students were in a very vulnerable situation at home or in their lodging situation whereby they were not feeding properly every day and too often went to school hungry. This may be because they are now full-time students and don't have the time to 'help' the family as previously they might or it may be an outcome of overall economic difficulties. Whatever the problem, a hungry student is not as good a student.

We dealt with this problem intially on an ad-hoc basis but recognised that it affected all of our sponsored young women and so we developed a small project that would resolve this on an on-going basis.

We began our 'Bags for Chop Money' program to provide them with regular amounts of money to buy food ('Chop Money' is money to buy food).

As part of our sponsorship, we have provided, at the school's direct suggestion, a sewing machine for 'home' practice for each of our Dressmaking students, and our NGO members send additional 'tools' and patterns to these students to further encourage their work on an ongoing basis.

The program is simple..we acumulated a set of designs for bags-tote bags, shoulder bags, overnight/weekend bags, and locally-sourced materials..Batik, Ewe Kente Designs, 'recycled' flour sacks. Naomi A, our 'lead developer' made a set of prototypes for us to decide what seemed to work best for our students to 'put together' and which we would then bring back to the US and distribute to our NGO Members as tokens of our gratitude for their support, and to show ..with pride...how well our supported students are doing.

We, of course, purchased all the materials..becoming expert market shoppers and negotiators..and worked with Naomi A and Sellah T , the first two to enter the program, to match designs and decide how many of each 'prototype' we could produce while the students were out of school.

We decided that a small but reasonable amount of money would go to each of the students in this program every two weeks to buy food, and to help them to improve their diets in return for their contribution to this program.

We brought back 30-40 bags after a month or so of the program and are distributing these within our Members. The response has been wonderful..and our Members are happy and proud to see the work that our students are doing. 

As are our students..look at the smiles on their faces. In addition to further developing their skills, they gain great pride in knowing that their 'work' is going out into the world..and this is hugely encouraging to them.

The program is not a quid pro quo..it is a mechanism to ensure that our most vulnerable students..our youngest female students.. have enough money every two weeks ongoing to eat properly and additionally but incidentally to give them pride in their developing skills and to show our NGO Members how well they are doing!

Although, the students are now all back in school, we purchased materials and agreed designs and numbers of each to be sewn by the team while they are in school..at weekends, etc. We have added Gifty G to the program now that she is back from Attachment (her 2-month 'practical' assgnment' ) and now that our three newest and youngest Year 1 students (Eilkplim A, Xorlali D, Evelyn K) have their sewing machines, they will be added to the program and 'trained' in the 'Bags for Chop Money' by Naomi A and Sellah T so that they too can be properly fed!

This program can repeat on itself year after year wih new students, where appropriate, being brought in and 'trained' by existing program members!  

A fine solution and a relatively simple program with everybody as winners! What's not to like!!

Our very first sponsored students graduated from Atorkor Vocational Traning Instiute on 17JUlY!!  

And we are all very proud of them...and how far they've come in our two and half years with them.

Forgive K was our very first sponsored student and Wilson B came to us over a year ago.  Forgive is in Catering and Wilson B is in Electrical Installation. Both have passed Ghana National Vocational Trade Certification Level 1 and are heading out now to get additional practical expereince before returning to AVTI in October to sit the final Trade Certification 2 exam in Nov/Dec 2015.

As you can see from the pictures we've appended, the Graduation Ceremonies were a great occasion for all concerned..but the students took pride of place in their caps and gowns and sashes...in front of friends, relatives, dignitaries, AVTI staff, marching bands, colourful dancers, and all the rest of the AVTI student body.  

Additionally, AVTI was decked out in its finery..with each of the trades showing off the work that the students have been doing in the last few months!

It truly was very heartwarming and encouraging for me to be there to see them graduate BUT also to see in the eyes, the voices and the happy smiles of the rest of our 20+ sponsored students how happy they were to be there also and to have us in attendance. I bet that you wish that you could have been there to see them all!!

So we'll make it a date for the years to come!!  it will be great to see them all realise this part of their dreams and head off into a better future than they might ever have dreamed of.

Thank you for all your support..without you, now and in the future, these dreams would not be possible for our students!

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https://4SROGBOE.org/help-us/