By Samuel Ayamah
Twenty teenage mothers have been enrolled in vocational skills training in the Bolgatanga Municipality of the Upper East Region. This move is part of efforts to reduce unemployment and poverty among teenage mothers through basket weaving. The Advocacy for Social Inclusion and Girls Education, ASIGE, established in 2016, has worked with vulnerable women and girls from five Communities, Sumbrungu, Azinsum, Bolgatanga-Soe, Vea and Feo, to address challenges of growth and development.
This is through the training of women in basket weaving and creating a market for their products, enrolling girls into vocational training, providing sensitization on sexual and reproductive health rights and supplying sanitary pads to schools in both Upper East and Upper West Regions.
At the ASIGE Straw Basket Weaving Centre, the Executive Director of ASIGE, Dorcas Apoore, said they are currently working with 429 women in the basket industry, training them to come out with products that meet international standards. She said apart from basket weaving with a positive impact on the vulnerable women and their families, and reducing poverty and migration, her organization had been able to enroll more than 50 girls who were mostly teenage mothers into vocational skills training and supported two teenage mothers to return to mainstream education.
The Girls-Education Officer at the Bongo District Directorate of the GES, Madam Rita Abama, was happy with the move by ASIGE. She was however worried about the high level of teenage pregnancy in the area.
On behalf of her colleagues, Madam Emmanuella Adombire commended the leadership of ASIGE for the gesture. She appealed to the government to promote the production of the straw they use in the region, due it being too expensive to import from down south. The Bolga basket is one of the most popular traditional items from Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. These durable and colorful baskets are made with elephant grass.
