A total of 31 teenage girls in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region have been trained and awarded certificates of proficiency in bead-making as part of efforts to reduce youth poverty and attendant teenage pregnancies.
The participants were taken through various modules of bead-making skills including designing of necklaces, waist beads, earrings, wrist bangles, among others.
The intensive practical training was an initiative by the Upper West Regional Youth Parliament with support from Plan International Ghana as a follow-up intervention to the research findings by the Youth Parliament (YP) that over 80 per cent of young girls in Wa East indulge in sex in exchange for sanitary goods.
The training was facilitated by Halu Memorial Fashion College with beneficiaries drawn from Buffiama, Kunyebeng, Funsi, Jumo and Yaala No.1 communities.
Addressing the participants at the training programme at Funsi, the district capital, the Speaker of the YP, Mr James Baba Anabiga intimated that the Youth Parliament had initiated a number of interventions following the research to salvage the situation.
He noted that the YP, with support from other organizations, have donated sanitary goods, including sanitary pads and sanitary cups, to young girls within the Wa East District.
He intimated that the feedback from the interventions, and the sanitary cups distribution in particular, have been encouraging as he was quoted as saying, “the feedback I’m getting already is that it’s doing very [very] well and helping a lot of our girls.”
He added that various tools of advocacy have been employed, including parliamentary sittings, press conferences, stakeholder engagements and consultative meetings, to address the issue.
Mr Anabiga, therefore, stated that the vocational skills training for the teenage girls was in line with the follow-up interventions to decisively deal with the menace through the provision of livelihood empowerment skills.
He impressed upon the beneficiaries to take the training seriously and make the most out of it so as to avoid falling victim to teenage pregnancies and early marriages.
Training facilitator, Madam Charity Dakurah, who could the girls through the training modules, said bead making is an easy-to-master and simple-to-market venture that young people ought to take advantage of.
She, thus, urged the participants to put the knowledge gained to judicious use for their benefit and that of their families.
At the end of the programme, 10 exceptionally performing trainees were provided with starter kits to enable them to begin their careers.
The beneficiaries acknowledged the importance of the training and expressed gratitude to the Upper West regional Youth Parliament and Plan International Ghana for offering to train them on the skill.
“I can make money from it by making some and sell, and I can also make some for myself for any occasion and I can sell some too for people to buy and send it to weddings and other occasions.
“I want to thank [Upper West Regional] Youth Parliament and Plan [International] Ghana for bringing this opportunity for us to learn and how to make money through it,” one of the beneficiaries, Miss Amina Bawa, said.