Youth Work programmes
Securing Knowledge into Life Long Learning (SKILL)
Content: |
Goal
Since 2003, the Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana has been working with youth clubs on various skill development programmes in Senior High Schools. The lessons learned from those experiences have been used to develop the Securing Knowledge into Life Long Learning (SKILL) programme.
The goal of the SKILL programme is to provide opportunities for young people, living in Bolgatanga, to develop themselves personally, as well as to improve their academic performances and career opportunities, as a contribution to poverty reduction and self-reliance.
To be able to achieve this goal, a youth center (SKILL centre) was established in Bolgatanga in 2009. Here the youth can find an environment to develop their personalities and their personal and interpersonal skills e.g. by participating in (creative) projects. To improve academic performance, a support system for students will be established in the form of remedial training, that will help them pass their exams. Finally, young people have the chance to acquire the necessary business skills to implement their own ideas and run them as profitable businesses. In this way they will be able to contribute to a sustainable development of the region.
The SKILL programme will therefore focus on the following four essential elements:
- Citizenship: Civic Awareness
- Life Skills: Personal and Interpersonal skills
- Academic improvement: Remedial classes and computer training
- Leadership: Entrepreneurial skills
With this programme we aim to support the adolescents in becoming part of a strong and self-confident young generation, that can face its future with confidence.
Objectives
- To run a youth centre (SKILL Centre), that is managed by young people, that will become an epicenter for a diversity of youth activities in northern Ghana.
- To council girls and young women, who are confronted with sexual discrimination, misuse or other problems.
- To facilitate youth projects and activities that promote self-confidence, critical thinking, creativity and autonomy of the youth.
- To run remedial classes in collaboration with harvest club patrons to help disadvantaged candidates in passing their exams.
- To form community clubs in four apprenticeship areas: hairdressing, carpentry, fitter mechanics and seamstresses and include the trainees into the personal and interpersonal skill programmes as well as the entrepreneurial skills program to enable them to establish their own shops later on.
- To set up a computer and secretarial unit at the SKILL centre and give training to students in basic computer skills and the internet.
- To develop and implement sustainability concepts for the youth center (e.g. setting up a copy shop).
- To set up a library to help the students in their studying.
Background
Born and raised in this deprived region, many of the region's youth give in to the poverty mentality and nurse a belief that nothing good can come out of their lives. A lack of self esteem, poverty and gender inequity is both symptom and cause for the youth's low self reliance and their academic performance.
The lack of a support system for the youth in school and apprenticeship training coupled with many challenges the adolescents are facing in the urban surrounding, lead to high failure rates in the final exams. Moreover the lack of skills training and capacity building programmes for youth in personal financial management has greatly affected their attitude towards savings and investment. Thus, the youth's financial illiteracy together with low self-confidence do not enable and encourage them to live up to their dreams, continue their educational career or build up their own enterprises. Their future plans therefore remain stagnant.
With this background in mind we have set up the SKILL programme in order for the youth to take their future in their own hands.
Programme Description
The SKILL Centre
With the existence of the SKILL Centre, the adolescents in Bolgatanga have a central meeting point to go to. Here, they can find counseling in burning questions and problems and can discuss these with others of their age or adult people they can trust. Ignorance and insecurity in sexuality, sexual transmittable diseases and traditional roles in society will be opposed with education. Furthermore, the SKILL Centre will be a platform for various youth projects, where the youngsters can try their talents and abilities and develop self-confidence and self-reliance. The center will be managed by the students to facilitate and support self-initiative, when realizing their own ideas. It will also help them to develop their own views, to think critically and come up with conflict management strategies. Within this project, they should learn to identify and address problems and develop strategies to come up with a solution.As a reliable contact person, a female social worker is available for individual counseling, to girls and young women in particular. Within regular office hours she will meet young people in need of council and if desired she will also make contact with their families to resolve conflicts. Apart from this, she is coordinating numerous aspects of the project, as well being a support to the Youth Centre's management and assist in the implementation of student projects.
The social worker will receive strong support by volunteers from Europe. Volunteer's support in the Reproductive Health project since 2007 has proved to us, that the intercultural contact between the youth in Bolga and the volunteers represents a very promising extension of our activities.
Life Skills project
This targets all young people with the focus on skills development in three areas:
Personal Competence:
skills such as Self-confidence and - awareness, Planning, Taking responsibility, Improving
own learning, Problem solving and decision-making
Interpersonal skills:
Skills such as Teamwork, Communication skills, Active listening skills, Leadership and Negotiation
Understanding contemporary issues:
Civic Awareness, Rights and responsibilities, Environment and Climate change
To acquire the skills mentioned above several Youth projects are currently in existence:
- Harvest Academy: The harvest academy is a football club for boys, which consists of two groups; boys under 12 and boys under 15. The football club was set up to boost the confidence of these boys as well as improving their teamwork and communication skills. Furthermore it gives an environment where they can feel free and do not have to worry about doing hard work to help out their parents.
- Drama groups and art classes: These classes will allow for creativity and self-expression. To be able to deal with problems creatively is very important in later life. As creativity is not encouraged in the school curriculum, it is a must that the opportunity is given to the students to think creatively.
- Newsletter committee: The newsletter committee is responsible for making the Harvest Newsletter which deals with issues concerning the youth. The committee is made up of students from the several Harvest clubs that run in the Senior High Schools. The committee serves as an example of youth participation. Responsibility is carried by the committee and its work is supervised by a staff member. The skills acquired by being part of this committee are many e.g. planning, taking responsibility, decision-making, teamwork, communication skills, leadership.
- Youth Parliament: The Youth Parliament is a debate contest on sensitive issues concerning sexual and reproductive health and rights. Furthermore it is a way for the youth to learn how to defend their opinion and be able to speak clear and meaningful in front of an audience. When you have to speak in front of 200 students as well as the Regional Minister it is also a great boost to one's confidence.
- Management of the SKILL Center: Managing the SKILL center will teach the young people lessons about responsibility, decision making and problem solving.
Academic improvement project
The aim of this project is to establish an effective support system to help students successfully graduate from secondary school. It will focus on remedial classes to enable those young people who still have the academic potential to re-write their failed exams in order to progress up the academic ladder.Taking advantage of the existing relationship between the YHFG and Youth Harvest club's patrons in the various Senior High Schools, the youth will attend classes on their respective subjects with the objective of enhancing their chances of re-writing and passing the final high school exams.
The SKILL centre will also serve as a resource centre and provide a conducive learning environment for this category of youth. A library will be set up in order for students to increase their learning possibilities by gaining additional knowledge from different textbooks.
Another aspect of this project is to improve the chances of students getting a promising future is by giving computer training. It is made mandatory in the Junior High Schools to have lessons on how to use a computer. However these schools often do not have the financial means to acquire computers. This means that students are not able to practice their newly acquired knowledge. In the SKILL centre the students will have the possibility to bring the theory into practice.
Entrepreneurial Skills Training project
The programme focus on creating economic opportunities for young people as the surest way to address endemic poverty in northern Ghana. Young people want to build meaningful careers for themselves and this programme increases awareness of their options in Ghana and in the global economy.
Main subjects of the training workshops for in-school and out-of-school youth are:
- Entrepreneurship,
- Investment and planning for the future,
- Developing a business idea,
- Selling the business idea,
- Financing your business,
- Business management,
- Marketing your business.
The workshops provide support to young people to become successful entrepreneurs by offering the type of practical knowledge, including
assessing the viability of business ideas and developing a business plan, to transform dreams into reality.
The hope is that the acquired habits and attitudes of investments and entrepreneurial spirit will be handed over to future generations as a
sure way of eradicating extreme poverty in northern Ghana.