Where: Paynesville City, Liberia
Area of Work: Education, Gender Equality & Women's Empowerment in the context of COVID-19
Girls Vocational Initiative is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on providing vocational skills training for young women and girls in pastry art & catering, cake decoration, handicraft, soap making, facial makeup, hairdressing, and event decoration.
For their first program, they had a lot of challenges. They trained young women and girls in the cow field community, Paynesville City, and those young women and girls didn’t have a dollar to pay for learning skills. So the organization thought it wise to do a streetcar wash at the ELWA Junction in Paynesville city. Having an idea with no finances to support it was worrying and devastating.
They walked on streets asking or begging car drivers, kekeh riders, and motorcyclists to allow their small team by then to wash their cars and motorcycles at any amount to raise funds to skill young women and girls at no cost.
The public was so receptive; they washed countless cars, kekehs, and motorcycles. They even raised more than the initial goal. The community leaders in Paynesville city helped them mobilize girls for their first batch training. So they had a successful training program, where thirty-five young women and girls were trained in pastry art and handicraft. Fifteen of those young women and girls are doing their businesses and generating more than 3,000 Liberian dollars weekly to attend to their needs or feed a household of five persons.
It is now a year and a couple of months since the Girls Vocational Initiative was born. Over one hundred women have acquired skills in pastry art & catering, cake decoration, handicraft, soap making, facial makeup, hairdressing, and event decoration. In such a short period, they have had a tremendous influence on women.
Photos provided by Girls Vacational Initiatives
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