Women make money out of trash

Women make money out of trash
Daily Graphic, Friday, 1st January, 2010; Page 19, (News)
Abdul Aziz

One hundred and eighty women have undergone a training programme to enable them to recycle plastic waste into handbags for sale in supermarkets.

The project, known as Trashes for Treasure, is being provided for women, especially young girls, under the auspices of Students in Free Enterprises (SIFE).

The project, which is aimed at women empowerment, recycles trash such as plastic and metal waste to manufacture bags, door mats and the metal waste to mould sculptures.

Sixty of the trainees were drawn from Abokobi and its surrounding areas in the Ga East Municipal Assembly to empower the young girls and discourage them from emigrating to the urban centres in search of no-existent jobs.

The remaining 120 women were drawn from the campus of the Institute of Professional Studies who are required to use innovating ways of creating employment for themselves when they graduate from the institute instead of waiting for employment from the government.

Mr. Frnacis Antwi, the Coordinator of the IPS branch of SIFE, in an interview said the branch undertook the training programme in collaboration with Rural Women Support Network based in Abokobi and Village Network, also a local NGO.

He said Students in Free Enterprises was an initiative of an American who loved and worked in Ghana and experienced the harrowing experiences of women had to undergo to secure training and macro-credit to start their own income-generating ventures.

He said SIFE, therefore, attached great importance to the granting of macro-credit facilities to rural and urban poor to start their businesses.

He said currently a Fulani herdswoman had been selected from Abokobi to be used as a model in the establishment of a diary plant for the manufacture of ice cream and yoghurt.

Mr Antwi said the project to turn fresh cow milk into yoghurt, if patronized, could be replicated across the country to help eradicate poverty and break its cycle in the rural areas.

The Coordinator expressed the hope that when the rural areas provided the enabling environment for the youth to earn a livelihood, it would discourage them from migrating to urban centres in search of jobs.

Mr. Antwi appealed to the youth, especially those in the rural areas, to learn a trade or acquire a profession instead of migrating to urban centres to look for non-existent jobs, which often landed them in bad company with its attendant antisocial activities such as indulging in pornography and prostitution.