The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ghana Office has funded the training of 195 refugees to empower them to become self-reliant and meaningful contributor to the Ghanaian society, their host country.
They underwent an intensive nine and three-month vocational and technical skills training respectively in driving, interior decoration and makeup, Catering, dressmaking, hairdressing, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and English proficiency.
The training Programme was conducted by the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) in partnership with Ghana Refugee Board.
At a graduation ceremony held at the Blue Oasis Centre for Urban Refugees in Accra on Thursday, the Director of Programmes and Advocacy, CCG, Dr Joyce Steiner said the refugees were selected based on their field of choice and were taken through counselling to help build their capacity in the skills acquired.
She said just as the sustainable development goals (SDG) advocate that no one should be left behind, the programme was to afford the refugees the opportunity to prepare them for the Ghanaian job market.
“So they’ll be given a seed capital to equip and help boost their skills and career,” she added.
Dr Steiner urged them to make use of the skills acquired and put it into practice to benefit others in the society.
Yangbo Natercia Benie, a beneficiary from Central Africa Republic who benefited from the ICT programme in an interview with the Ghanaian Times expressed gratitude to UNHCR and its partners for the support, saying “the training has helped me to be more conversant with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
I can do presentations, edit, calculate, reset computers, use the peripherals – activate and deactivate it and I’m hoping that if I get any job I can put my talent to test to the benefits of the economy.”
Another beneficiary, Adamu Musa-Adulai, from the Republic of Cameroon after going through English proficiency training said “As a Cameroonian, I could not have spoken better English because we’re mostly French speaking country but after pursuing the course, I could now speak and express myself well in the English language and can do business in other English speaking countries.”
The graduates were awarded certificates for their various fields of discipline.
BY VIVIAN ARTHUR
