The International Women’s Hope Centre, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has trained 34 women from the Boglingo and Sapio communities at Sirigu in the Bolgatanga Municipality of the Upper East Region in liquid soap production.
The free skills training programme was the NGO’s initiative to help women in rural communities to start their own businesses and earn income to cater for their families.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the training, Mr Albert Opoku Appiah, the Administrator of the International Women’s Hope Centre, said the NGO for the past nine years, had extended support and skills training to several women in the Upper East region.
He said with the leadership of Madam Gladys Adochim, the NGO’s President, Madam Gladys Anayem, its Executive Director and support from the Heartbeat International, Relationship Under Construction (RUC) and Women’s Clinic in Columbus Ohio, some women in communities across the region were also trained on how to make pastries among others.
‘So far
, we have trained several women groups. We have been to Builsa North and South including Tongo, Bolgatanga, Zuarungu and Sumbrungu areas.
‘We want to ensure that at least, they get a livelihood and something that can put food on their table. Our target is the adolescents who do not find themselves in school. We want to ensure they get some livelihood instead of depending on men who will at the end impregnate them.
‘This, we believe will help reduce poverty within these communities,’ the Administrator added.
Mr Appiah said apart from the skills training programmes, the NGO had over the years organized free medical screening and breast examination for over 1000 people in various communities and supported pregnant adolescent girls to undergo safe deliveries.
‘We believe babies are gifts from God, and we do not encourage abortion. When an adolescent finds herself pregnant, we try to encourage her to give birth,’ he noted.
The Administrator said the NGO also provided certain basic items and services to pregna
nt adolescent girls to enable them to attend Antenatal Clinics for safe delivery.
‘We know they will need certain basic things to go through the antenatal period. We provide free ultrasound scan, which helps us to know the sex of the baby, so that we can supply them with appropriate baby items,’ Mr Appiah said.
He expressed gratitude to Heartbeat International, RUC, Women’s Clinic, leadership of the NGO and its team for the collaborative efforts over the years.
Madam Charity Ayinga Abusambire, a Community Health Officer at the Boglingo Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compound, initiated the training for the women.
She told the GNA that through her work, she had observed that there were several adolescent mothers in the communities without any income generation activities to enable them care for themselves and their children and that prompted her to contact the NGO for the skills training for them.
Madam Abusambire thanked the NGO and its sponsors for the support extended to the women
and expressed the hope that the training would serve the intended purpose.
Some of the beneficiaries, who shared their training experience with the GNA, described the production process as simple and less capital intensive and thanked the organizers for the training.
Source: Ghana News Agency