Project Report
| Oct 28, 2011
Real World Skills
By Tom Arsenault | Overseas Program Manager
When someone is taught a vocational skill, it can never be taken from them. It's a real world skill that they take with them whereever the may go. When the formal unemployment rate is 90%, any kind of skill can be the difference between survival and not. Whether it's sewing, carpentry, hairdressing, raising fowl or raising rabbits, that little bit of extra knowledge sets these girls apart from the rest.
Once we have raised the last $2100, ASAP plans to train a group of about 20 young girls. There is no shortage of requests. It's only the funds that are needed to implement the training program. Your support through Global Giving is now the primary source of support and is greatly appreciated so these enthusiastic girls can gain the skills needed to live productive lives and become self-supporting. Thank you again.
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Aug 22, 2011
Skills Training Popular
By Tom Arsenault | Overseas Program Manager
![Girls Enjoy the Training]()
Girls Enjoy the Training
ASAP thanks everyone who contributed so far to this project.The last group of girls to receive vocational training for two weeks were very pleased with the results. As much as possible, training was adjusted to suit what each student wanted. These trainings have been very much in demand by the local communities. ASAP is planning to conduct another training once the remaining $2650 of funding has been received as it is only cost effective in larger groups.
There is more to the training than just sewing clothes.As these girls learn to produce garments they begin to feel more personally valuable with increased self esteem. The cost of clothes is high and getting higher in Zimbabwe so anyone who has the skills to actually produce decent garments becomes a real asset to the community. And it's not just clothes for adults; they also make school uniforms at a discount to the cost of buying in town. We thank everyone again for supporting this worthwhile project and we hope you will continue to support it.
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Apr 22, 2011
Youth Appreciate Vocational Training
By Tom Arsenault | Project Leader
The vocational training aspect of the Out of School Adolescents project partnership between ASAP and Catholic Relief Services had budget cuts. Community Facilitators were hired to give vocational skills training in carpentry, hair dressing and sewing. These facilitators were either school teachers or qualified practicing individuals from the communities where the project clusters are formed. Training was localized in the selected clusters to meet with the budget size. The training had been initially planned to run for 21 days but later during implementation the days were reduced to14 days to suit the budget size even with the Global Giving funding.
This approach is very suitable for our youth and adult Internal Savings and Lending (ISAL) members, as since 2002 they have been asking for skills training to boost their income generating activities (IGAs) by running them more skillfully. We have already started receiving request to expand this training to the community members(ISAL and non ISAL members ), local stakeholders and local schools where the trainings were held or those community members who heard about the trainings. The training was very practical and the trained youths have started to employ the skills they gained in their IGAs. The only limitation in this intervention was enough resources to buy start up kits for those who received the training.
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