Siera Grass-roots Agency (SIGA)

Vocational Skills Training is also part of the Education for Children in Work Situation (ECWS) project. Those over-aged children (13 to 17) in the ECWS who could not fit in the formal school system are encouraged to enroll for free vocational training in carpentry, tailoring and welding. Some of these children include victims of teenage pregnancy and motherhood, child prostitution and trafficking, child marriages, drugs abuse, orphans and street children. A total of up to 100 students (60 female 40 male) are periodically trained and they graduate after 18 months of training.

The demand for places in the vocational training sector of the project and especially in the tailoring department is increasing. This is mainly because most of the graduates are able to start their tailoring businesses in their villages after graduation. This is made easy since all the graduate trainees inherit their sewing machines and some equipment as a startup for their businesses. All the girls in the vocational training program are in the tailoring project and almost all of them graduate. Some of the girls are now bread winners with their skills in their households and some married ones are making reasonable income to assist their husbands in providing for the family.

The ECWS has established tailors in some villages in the chiefdom that have never benefited from tailoring services for a long time.