EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Project Title: Sustainable Livelihoods Promotion for Marginalised Youths

Partner Location: Danfa & Adidome, Southern GhanaPartner Organisation: ProLink, Ghana

Total Cost: £36,813.00Amount Unfunded: £24,877.00

The main purpose of this project is the alleviation of poverty and the promotion of sustainable livelihood opportunities amongst marginalised youths in the deprived slums around Accra, Southern Ghana. Working in conjunction with long standing Ghanaian partner organisation, Pro Link Ghana, Tools for Self Reliance intend to provide vocational tools, technical, micro-entrepreneurial and relevant life skills to 140 disadvantaged young men and women enabling them with sustainable livelihood opportunities.

This project aims to provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for 140 youths who due to a various poverty-related reasons were unable to complete their formal education past the Junior Secondary School Level 3 (Year 8). This lack of formal qualifications results in the disenfranchisement of these individuals from the employment mainstream. In order to survive, such youth often resortto peripheral economic activities such as stealing, busking, porting, prostitution, drug couriering and other risky, unsustainable and often illegal, employment activities. This situation is especially detrimental to females with young children, because the greater the need for an influx of income the more risks that individuals are willing to take – most commonly prostitution which results in high incidences of HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases – which threaten the very lives of these young women, and ultimately their children. This project aims to help combat these problems.

This project will train participants out of two Pro-Link Vocational Centres – located in Danfa and Adidome, located in the slums outside of Accra. The Danfa Centre will cater exclusively to females with a preference given to those with young children, and those who have suffered more extreme forms of physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse, and will offer courses in hairdressing, tailoring and catering. In order to allow young mothers to take full advantage of the Centre, this project will offer a day-care centre for their children during class sessions. This Danfa Centre is projected to cater to 60 participants. The Centre in Adidome will run a unisex programme and will cater to 30 female and 40 male youth. Vocational courses will be offered in masonry, carpentry, and tailoring. At both Centres, all participants will also receive training in basic micro-entrepreneurial skills and sexual reproductive healtheducation, including HIV/AIDS. Specific micro-entrepreneurial skills taught will include micro-business management, profit and loss calculations, basic marketing, advertising, interview techniques and other relevant employment skills. In both Centres, class sizes for the vocational training sessions will range between 20-30 students. In an effort to disseminate the benefits of this project to the wider community, participants will take the lead in a community outreach peer-education programme. Participants will visit neighbourhood schools and community centres and educate young teens on good sexual and reproductive health practices. This scheme has the advantage that the education will be coming from participants to their own communities and age groups – which will validate the necessity of proper sexual and reproductive health practice. At both Centres, the participants are expected to train for one year, up to NVTI standard (the nationally recognised vocational qualification). Upon completion of the training participants will be encouraged to start small vocational businesses (as groups) or ProLink will help place some students in employment. For those students who start their own small businesses, Tools for Self Reliance will supply a tool kit as a capital investment.

This project is projected to have the following objectives:

  • To provide appropriate and practical vocational skills to 140 youth at vocational centres in Adidome and Danfa
  • To provide micro-entrepreneurial skills and other useful employment skills to 140 youth, to increase their opportunities for employment
  • To provide 140 participants with relevant sexual and reproductive health education
  • To disseminate good sexual and reproductive health education practice to the local community through the peer education community outreach programme
  • To provide a day-care centre for the children of participants and young mothers wishing to get back into employment

Tools for Self Reliance and Pro Link will take joint responsibility for the monitoring and evaluation of this project. During the course of the year, Pro Link will closely monitor the progress of participants in reaching the project objectives. All information regarding participants’ progress will be collated into quarterly progress reports. 12 month from the start of the project, Tools for Self Reliance will carry out an end-of-term evaluation, during which time the project’s final impact will be determined.