Link Community Development (LCD), a non-profit organization focused on empowering children, especially, the vulnerable through education, has met its stakeholders in the Bawku West District in the Upper East Region ahead of the implementation of the Strategic Approach to Girls’ Education (STAGE) in the district.
The STAGE project aims at giving selected vulnerable and marginalised adolescent girls a second chance to achieve their educational dreams.
STAGE is expected to be implemented in two tracks, being formal and non-formal tracks to empower the beneficiary girls to live independent and productive lives when they grow.
A total of 550 deprived girls selected from 22 deprived communities in the Bawku West District of the Upper East Region are to go through the formal track of STAGE.
Speaking at the stakeholders meeting at Zebilla, Samuel Ofori Boakye, Safe-Gaurd Lead for Link Community Development, said the formal track of STAGE is scheduled to start in November 2019, where the beneficiary girls will have the opportunity to learn literacy, numeracy and life skills in their mother tongue for a period of one year and then integrated into a mainstream school.
“The formal track will focus on adolescents girls who are between the ages of 10 and 14 years. Once they are selected and they start and end their classes successfully, they will be integrated into mainstream schools and monitored and supported for a period of three years, as they go through formal education.” He added.
Mr. Boakye, noted that the project will provide supportive tracks for 2,875 highly marginalized out of school girls in four districts in the Upper East Region.
“The intervention will help to move “out of school” adolescents girls into education or employment. STAGE will provide two mutually supportive tracks for 2,875 highly marginalized out of school girls in four districts being Bawku West District, Kassena Nankana West, Bongo and Nabdam Districts in the Upper East Region.” He said.
He, however assured parents and guardians that as part of the interventions, the safety of the girls are paramount as the project has partnered with various security agencies and protective bodies in the region and the country at large to protect the girls from harm or abuse.
The project will also include 10 percent of girls with disabilities and 25 percent of girls with severe disabilities in the selected districts.
Meanwhile similar stakeholders meetings have been held in the three other beneficiary districts in the Upper East Region.
Source: A1radioonline.com | Moses Apiah | Ghana
