Eighteen youth, who have undergone training in plumbing, tailoring/seamstress, tiling, motor electrician, smock weaving amongst others, have been supported with start-up equipment to assist them as they embark on their journey to self-reliance.
The start-up equipment, provided by the SOS Children’s Villages in Ghana, included industrial sewing machines, drilling machines, equipment for weaving, plumbing amongst others, and the beneficiaries were from Cheshe, a suburb of Tamale.
Mr Alexander Mar Kekula, National Director, SOS Children’s Villages in Ghana, who handed over the equipment to the beneficiaries at Cheshe, said it formed part of the SOS Children’s Villages in Ghana’s Family Strengthening project to empower them to be economically stable.
The ceremony was also to inaugurate an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Learning Centre for the Cheshe R/C Basic School in Tamale to help ensure quality education and prepare the schoolchildren for the challenges of the digital age.
Mr Mar Kekula said, “In relation to self-reliance, we have in addition provided grants to 70 caregivers to start their own businesses, earn income and care for their children. Our interventions in this regard are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals; No Poverty and Decent Work and Economic Growth, respectively.”
He said for the past one year, “SOS Children’s Villages has invested over GHc600,000.00 to empower families through grants, youth start-up tool kits, school support and community empowerment in our participating communities including Adubiliyili, Fooshegu, Chanshegu, Gbulahibila and Cheshe in the Tamale Metropolis.”
He announced that as the SOS Children’s Villages in Ghana marked its 50th anniversary this year, a project dubbed: “PUNBO”, which was mainly an agricultural intervention to invest over GHc4 million in the lives of caregivers in those communities, would be implemented for the next three years.
He expressed hope that, “The caregivers, traditional leaders and other stakeholders of these communities will cooperate with my staff in Tamale to make this project a success.”
Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Member of Parliament for Tamale South Constituency commended SOS Children’s Villages in Ghana for its interventions to improve on the living conditions of the people in the area.
Napari Mahama, one of the beneficiaries, who is a seamstress, lauded the support extended to them, saying without such support, it would have been difficult for some of them to acquire such equipment to establish their businesses.
