Community education and job training

In the landlocked Eastern Region of Sierra Leone, poverty is widespread. “Thousands of families are living in rundown and hazardous shelters, with decaying infrastructure” wrote Crossroads’ partners. “Schools are faced with many challenges. There’s an absence of libraries, poor conditions of classrooms and toilets, insufficient teachers, broken chairs and tables, and so on.” Even where schools are equipped for students, many families can’t afford to keep their children in school beyond a few years. “The majority of families are still living in conditions of extreme poverty,” said our partners. “All family incomes are oriented to the first need: food. In most cases, they can’t afford the cost of school uniforms, shoes, transport or books.” Our partners are working within their communities to help families break out of the poverty cycle so that they can keep their children in school to give them better opportunities. They said that job options for untrained youth are dire. “The majority are unskilled, and not equipped for self-employment, so they do hazardous jobs such as extracting stone to sell, or digging ditches. The money they earn is below one dollar a day.”

To address these deep-seated problems, our partners are running highly successful projects in vocational job training, agricultural training, micro-credit for women and also workshops on preventing HIV, Covid-19 and gender-based violence. We are pleased to be supporting them with a shipment of goods that will help them expand their projects to include things like a computer training centre, youth recreation centres and new primary and secondary schools.

In the communities our shipment will be helping, most of the jobs available for youth without education or training are difficult and low-paid. They may break rocks (above) or dig roads (below), earning just a dollar a day. Goods from this shipment will help more local students access education, and learn practical, vocational skills, so that they can move beyond a dependence on dangerous, low-paid work to survive.

Sallay’s story

Sallay was one of six children, and her ageing parents simply couldn’t afford to keep her in school. “She completely lost hope,” said our partners. That hope was rekindled, though, when she joined a tailoring class our partners were offering to girls like her who had dropped out of school. Today, Sallay has established her own tailoring workshop which generates enough income for her to support her younger siblings to stay in school, provide food for her family, and set herself up in a new, modern apartment. Now, Sallay helps other young women through her own successful business, teaching tailoring to girls who, just like her, were forced to leave school early.

Fatu’s story

Fatu has been working the land since she was a teenager, but the work had been hard and the rewards small. Fatu had no in-depth knowledge about how to use her land to its greatest potential. The income she earnt from her meagre harvests could barely sustain her family. After joining our partners’ agricultural training in a women’s group project, Fatu learnt better ways to farm, and now she successfully grows nutritious, high quality vegetables which provide her family with healthy meals, and a sustainable income. The project has been life-changing for her. With the increased income, she can now keep all her children in school and pay for their books and uniforms. When they’re sick, Fatu can take them to a private clinic and get the medicine and care they need. She has even used the surplus profits to establish her own small business, selling clothes, shoes and bags in the local market. Goods from this shipment will help our partners help more women like Fatu learn the skills to earn a better income and support their families.

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WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING?

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Zambia has faced an unsteady economy in recent years, and nowhere is that more visible than in the nation’s rural areas. Here, the poverty rate is almost triple that of people living in urban areas. HIV/AIDS is still endemic, affecting over 11% of the population.

Our partners in Zambia have been working to help their communities by establishing firm and sustainable foundations of education, financial aid, vocational programmes and nutritional advice. These ensure that children have access to a good diet and education, and that families can create their own income through agriculture, manual labour and practical skills like carpentry and cookery. There are also programs to increase young people’s awareness of the social factors that can lead to contracting AIDS and HIV.

This shipment will allow our partners to provide these services and give them the opportunity to expand the number of programmes and increase the number of people they can help. We are sending books, stationery, school and office furniture, and electrical goods, including computers, to help with the education and training programmes, long with clothes and bedding to help those families who are unable to afford them. These goods will help build the foundations on which these communities can grow, and we are proud to be a part of that.

New school under construction

Our partners are building a school, due to open in 2022, which will give education to children who currently can’t afford to go to school. They’ve asked Crossroads for help with goods like school furniture, educational resources and other things to help them give quality schooling to children who are now missing out.

These two children must stay at home to help their mother, rather than go to school, as their family can’t afford school fees.

Benjamin’s story

Benjamin was enrolled in an electrical engineering course, but he was forced to drop out of college as he could not afford the fees. Shortly afterwards he was helping with our partners’ school construction project and his needs came to the attention of the staff.

Our partners enrolled him in their education programme, meaning that his fees would be paid for so that he could finish his studies.

Benjamin completed his course in December 2019 and is now ready to look for employment as a qualified worker.

Goods from this shipment will equip our partners to help more motivated young people like Benjamin, giving them a chance to complete their education and enrich their employment possibilities.

One school in the area has only the equipment shown in this picture to provide education and training to the community.

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Community development

In Central Ghana, the nation’s poorest region, most people make their living from the land, through fishing and farming, or through small businesses like carpentry, weaving, or market stalls. They are left vulnerable when unexpected changes arise, or disasters hit.

Our partners on this shipment started an NGO in 2013 to help a handful of disadvantaged students, widows and elderly in their community.  The project snowballed, and they added programmes in youth job training, counselling in STD prevention and drug awareness, and establishing a small medical clinic. Today their programmes reach more than 2,000 people each year.

They have seen hundreds of vulnerable women and young people trained in skills like soap making and tailoring, who are now able to earn a living from their skills, but they want to scale up. “We want to extend the programmes to five other communities,” they told us. Their plan is to set up mini healthcare centres, bakeries, a palm oil extraction project and coconut farm, all to create jobs and set up thousands more people to be self-sustaining and escape the poverty cycle.

Our shipment will include goods to support their efforts, including electrical equipment, medical and office furniture, household goods, recreational goods for youth, educational books, clothing and more.

Training youth in skills like traditional ‘kente’ weaving (above), woodworking and tailoring, helps preserve and celebrate local traditions while setting up young people to generate their own income or start small businesses.

A ‘hand up’ for bright students in need

When they looked around their community, our partners could see that there were children from impoverished families who were bright and ambitious but couldn’t afford to stay in school. The cost of uniforms, school fees and boarding accommodation for those living far away was simply too great for some families, meaning that students with high potential were missing out. Our partners identified four such students for a pilot project (pictured above) and gave them everything they needed to be able to stay in school, where they are now completing their secondary education and have bright futures ahead! They want to replicate this success by sponsoring more students in other communities, but they’ve asked for help with goods from Crossroads to administer this and other projects.

Expanding their reach

Our partners currently have offices on the ground floor of a school building, but they want to expand to reach five more communities. This needs a capital injection of goods like furniture, household goods and medical equipment, which Crossroads is well-placed to provide!

The expansion will allow them to reach thousands more people in need through training, healthcare and educational projects.

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Community development and education

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The civil war in Sierra Leone ended years ago but the effects are still felt through inadequate health, education and employment opportunities, especially in rural areas. While still recovering from the armed conflict, the nation was hit by the deadly Ebola outbreak, which left thousands of children orphaned and traumatised. Today, Sierra Leone is one of the five least developed nations in the world.

We are shipping to a group in Sierra Leone who reach out to address the complex needs that are keeping their communities trapped in poverty. They run projects like:

• Job skills training for youth
• Care for children orphaned by the Ebola epidemic who are suffering post-traumatic stress and vulnerable to abuse and neglect
• Community education to end child marriages and female genital mutilation
• Cooperatives for the social and economic empowerment of women

We are shipping a range of goods to support their work across all their programs.

For thousands who were injured or lost limbs in the civil war, it can be very difficult to sustain employment, leaving many with disabilities in poverty. Goods from this shipment will help in our partners’ projects offering skills training to people with disabilities.

Abie’s story

Abie was an orphan, living with her aunt, who would send her into the town streets to sell food. One day, Abie was attacked and her money stolen by a street gang, but when Abie returned in tears to tell her aunt, she was beaten and chased back into the street to recover the money she had lost.

While wandering the streets unable to earn back the money she needed, Abie befriended some local women who were making their living through prostitution, and soon she turned to the same career. Thankfully, after some time, staff from our partner NGO met Abie and they counselled and supported her into returning to school, where she’s now a successful student.

This shipment will include goods to support our partners’ projects with youth like Abie, helping them find better, safer paths into adulthood.

Our partners use drama, music and dance in their community education programs with teens and adults on topics like HIV prevention, ending child marriage and ending female genital mutilation.

Alhaji’s story

On one of their field trips to remote villages, our partners met Alhaji. The young boy who should have been in school was instead roaming the village doing odd jobs for people in return for food. Staff soon learnt that he was an orphan living with his grandmother, who couldn’t afford food for either herself or Alhaji. Today, with our partners’ help, Alhaji is back in school and he and his grandmother have food assistance while he studies. This shipment will include goods to support orphans like Alhaji to stay in school and break out of poverty.

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