Duusi (U/E) Jan. 01, GNA – The Community Development and Advocacy Centre (CODAC) has trained teenagers at Duusi, a community in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region, in employable skills to curtail rural-urban migration.
A total of 78 teenagers, some of whom were pregnant, underwent trainings in soap making, and were given start-up kits to start businesses of their own in their respective area.
CODAC is a Non-Governmental Organisation based in the Region and works to promote the rights of women and children including; persons with disability.
Mr Bukari Issahaku, the Executive Director of CODAC, at a programme to inaugurate the beneficiaries of the training, said CODAC for the past four years built capacities of women in the Duusi community with support from World Vision.
He said during their engagement with the women in the community, they realized that teenage pregnancy was common among the girls in the area.
“A lot of the girls here get pregnant and drop out of school, so we decided to assist those who want to continue their education and equip those who don’t want to continue with employable skills.”
Mr Issahaku said with funding support from the German Embassy, his outfit selected five groups in the community and trained them in soap making, “We are going to inaugurate and give them start-up kits.”
He said the initial proposal was to train 75 teenage mothers, but after a screening process, they had about 135, and out of the number, they were screened to 96 to select those interested in the concept.
Some of the girls, he said dropped out during the training, and only 78 successfully completed the programme. “The main objective of the programme is to ensure that the teenage mothers have economic activities to do or go back to school.”
The Executive Director disclosed that one of the teenage mothers who wrote this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) got aggregate 18, “So CODAC is picking up that student to support her continue her education.”
He said it was through certain influences and social vices that got some of the girls pregnant, and indicated that through capacity building and sensitisation, some of them saw the need to continue their education, while some engaged in the training.
He said apart from soap making, the girls were also taught how to market their soap after production, adding that based on the success of the programme, CODAC would extend the training to other Districts, especially the Bongo and Nabdam Districts, where teenage pregnancies were also high.
Mr Issahaku said the biggest challenge after the training was the lack of workshops for the beneficiaries to produce the soap, which would be done among five different groups in five communities.
Mr John Kame Yen-Nyatta, a representative of the Chief of Duusi at the programme, said the skilled training offered by CODAC was helpful to the teenage mothers and would prevent them from travelling to the southern part of the country in search of jobs.
He said “We appreciate the gesture by CODAC, in fact this is not the only thing they have done in this community, but this in particular will help the girls, their families and the community at large.”
One of the beneficiaries; Ms Nathasia Mba-Enn, on behalf of her colleagues, thanked CODAC for the training and support given to them, “This will go a long way to stop we the young girls in this community from moving to the urban areas for jobs. It has opened up job opportunities for us. We will put the skills acquired to good use.”
On display at the programme were different types of soap prepared by the beneficiaries.
GNA