By Mildred Siabi-Mensah/ Priscilla Nartey
Sekondi, Oct. 26, GNA-Some Female prisoners at the Sekondi Female Prisons have graduated after six months of intensive vocational skills and entrepreneurial education.
They were taken through courses in millinery and accessories, interior and floral decorations, cosmetology and soap making to enable them to start their businesses through the startup component of the Micro Aid Foundation (MAF), a non-governmental organisation.
Mr Evans Nii Boye, the Project Coordinator, MAF, said a feasibility undertaken by the organisation in some prisons revealed the necessity to provide inmates with skills to give them a future after serving their jail sentence.
The training was supported by the Global Affairs Canada through Plan International Ghana under the Women’s Voice and Leadership Programme.
The sessions were facilitated by the Goshen Fashion School in the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolis.
The beneficiaries were also taken through business development: coaching, mentorship and counselling, financial literacy and entrepreneurship.
Mr Boye said for sustainability purposes, some officers were trained to pass on the skills to imitates to curb unemployment and the tendency to indulge in anti-social activities.
Mrs Sophia Pardie Ocran, the Deputy Executive Director of MAF, said the project offered a life changing opportunity to the beneficiaries as skills and vocational training held the key to socioeconomic growth.
The NGO would continue to partner the government and other organisations to deliver social intervention services to improve lives, she said.
Assistant Director of Prisons, Yayra Ashong-Mettle, the officer in charge of the Female Prisons, which served Western and Central, said the training had contributed to the holistic reformation of the inmates and commended the Foundation for the gesture.
“We want to give a meaning to all lives who come here and we are blessed MAF came”.
Mr Jephthah Donkoh, an Officer from the Legal Aid Commission, took the women through their various rights and privileges as well as their responsibility to the state.
He urged them to avoid any conflict with the law when they were reunited with their families and communities.
Mr Gideon Bonney, the Director of Goshen Fashion School, facilitators of the training, encouraged the inmates to keep hope alive and become a better version of themselves to have testimonies to share in the near future.
GNA