Monday, December 6, 2010

OBRAACHIRE TRAINING CENTRE TO REDUCE POVERTY (PAGE 38, DEC 6, 2010)

“If you want one year of prosperity for your community,grow only crops. If you want 10 years of prosperity, cultivate only trees. But if you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people,” so goes a Chinese saying.
Since the youth shall remain one of the greatest assets that any community can possess, there is the need to invest greatly in them for the sustainable development of society.
It is against this background that the Obrachire Skills Training Centre was established in January 2010 to alleviate rural poverty and youth unemployment by providing tuition-free market-driven vocational and technical skills training, as well as excellent job placement services.
The fast growing skills training project targets unemployed and underemployed youth at Obrachire and its surrounding communities in the Central Region, who failed to complete primary or secondary education to have access to vocational and technical education.
The trainees undergo six months intensive skills course in hair technology, baking and pastry arts, cookery and mobile phone repair technology.
As resources unfold, the centre will invest in other market-driven vocational and technical programmes of study, the next in line being batik tie-dye technology.
To ensure that students become responsible members of society and maintain their employment, trainees also undergo life skills, entrepreneurial skills and leadership training as core courses.
After successfully completing six months of study in a particular programme, the students serve as interns with top class business establishments for two months in order to gain rich job experience and make a smooth transition from school to work.
The centre is blessed with affable and passionate instructors and job placement experts who establish career paths for each student and work around the clock to secure good-paying jobs in line with the career goals of each student.
The Obrachire Skills Training Centre has great potential of becoming a springboard to financial freedom and dignity amongst the youth and is therefore, critical to family strengthening and community development.
So far, 21 inmates who have completed various training programmes are to undergo attachment whilst 21 others are being admitted.
At the launching of the first Students Representative Council Week celebration last Monday, the Director of the Centre, Mr Joseph Tetteh, said what was troubling was the fact that some members of the society had engaged themselves in all sorts of unimportant matters aimed at distracting the progress of the centre and holding back the community’s clock of development.
He appealed for support for the centre to provide skills for the youth in the area.

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