SKIP UCL - Ghana

SKIP UCL’s first project started in Summer 2007 in the small community of Tongo in North Ghana working to improve the lives of teenage mothers in the village. SKIP UCL volunteers helped to run a summer school for children, engaged in health promotion and renovated a school building that has provided an opportunity for people of the village to learn the trades of hairdressing and dress-making. Funds raised by our branch supported the sourcing of four teachers to run this school.

Sadly, issues specific to the local area have meant we are unable to further develop these interventions in the future. We have begun a planned withdrawal of our project that continues to support year round skills teaching to the local community.

We are currently in the process of researching potential locations and interventions for our next project and hope to be running a research trip in the near future.

History

SKIP UCL initiated the first stage of their project in the summer of 2006 by carrying out a research trip to Tongo. After having met with several organisations, we decided to work with the pastor of the village, Father David, who had a vision to help the teenage mothers of the community. Our research found that most of the girls in village wanted a vocational school to learn the trades of hairdressing and dress-making. We were provided with a half completed building that Father David said we could use as a site for the vocational school.

What did our project do?

After a successful pilot project the following year in 2007, by which time most of the building had been renovated for use by the girls of the village, SKIP UCL returned in summer 2008 to start the project. We accomplished our interventions as planned before, which included:

• Plastering the remaining rooms in the building, fitting doors and windows painting to complete the work on the building.
• Re-interviewing the original candidates for training who were still interested and selecting two trainers for hairdressing and two for dress-making. We also contacted the original girls, registered those still in Tongo and so established a functional school.
• Running a summer school for the children involving Maths and English lessons in the mornings and a play scheme in the afternoons, thus providing opportunities for some children who were not in education.
• Carrying out health promotion with the help of the community nurse regarding basic health and hygiene practices.
• Making efforts to actively involve members of the community in order to gain useful local knowledge and insight from them and also ensure sustainability of the project.

What are our goals for the future?

Our goals for the future at SKIP UCL include:

• Ensuring the sustainability of our first project in Tongo
• Working towards setting up a new project
• Continuing to work towards the SKIP vision of improving the health, education and welfare for communities across the world.

How do we raise money?

SKIP UCL has run several fundraising and publicity events for our past project and continue to run further events to raise money for our potential new project. These events have included street collections, film nights and cake sales. These events help to raise money for our new project and raise the profile of SKIP within UCL and the surrounding area. If you would like to be notified of any upcoming events then please email us at the email address below and we hope to see you very soon!

Contact us

For more information about SKIP UCL, our prospective project or future fundraising events then please contact us at skipucl@hotmail.co.uk