42 street children acquire employable skills

Dalun (NR), March 19, GNA - A second batch of 42 street children at Dalun in the Tolon/Kumbungu District on Thursday passed out after six weeks intensive training in employable skills to help reposition them in the society.

The Dagbon Nineesim Karimzong (DNK), the education sector of the Ghanaian Danish Community Programme (GDCP) organised the course under the street children component of the Community-Based Poverty Reduction Project (CPRP).

This brings to 80, the number of street children who have so far benefited from the project. The first batch of 38 children who passed out about six months ago had been on practical attachment with various craftsmen and women within the district and in the Tamale Metropolis. They trained in soap making, dressmaking, carpentry and masonry, as well as counselling on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), moral education, rural poultry and literacy.

Alhaji Abubakari Inusah, Focal Person of the Street Children Component of the CPRP in Tamale assured the children that the government was solidly behind them and was ready to support them to improve their lives.

He appealed to their parents to support them to put their skills to good use and not to let them end up farming so as to encourage others to avail themselves of the opportunity to acquire employable skills. He said the CPRP would continue to offer training for street children, particularly those who had no parents to ensure that such children were kept off the streets.

Miss Inusah Neemah, leader of the trainees, appealed to parents to continue to lend them the needed support to motivate them to perform their duties to encourage others to leave the streets.