Red Cross empowering girls who drop out of school in Vanuatu

Transcript

A Vanuatu Red Cross Livelihoods program is helping young girls who drop out of school learn skills to help them earn a living.

Empowering Vanua Malagwelo is a locally run residential programme which takes in 10 to 15 girls for three weeks at a time to teach them life skills, including practical income generating skills like sewing and cooking as well as reproductive health and civic education.  

A support officer for the programme Rae Tavoa said the programme has had more than 70 young girls complete the training which started in 2014.

Ms Tavoa said the centre continued providing support to graduates in their communities even providing a shop front service for their products.

She told Chris Bramwell it was very difficult for girls in Vanuatu to make a living once they dropped out of school.

RAE TAVOA: This project is all about empowering young women by giving them another chance to earn a living. They teach them income generating skills and we also give them awareness about health and all this other stuff. Even financial literacy and Agriculture we teach them that. We have trainers from other organisations they come in here to train the girls and then they show them how to earn a living out from.

CHRIS BRAMWELL: How many children do you train?

RT: It is 15 girls each training workshop and sometimes due to some reasons it drops down to 14, 13 then 12. But normally it is not less than 10 it is more than 10.

CB: And what kind of ages are they?

RT: It is from 16 years up until 20 plus. 21, 22, 23 yeah.

CB: So do the girls live in here as well for the workshop or do they just come and visit everyday to learn?

RT: They live here, so they come in on Monday and then they go back every Fridays. We try to keep them here so that they are more focused and they don't lose interest. That is why we keep them around here, we don't let them go. And we have rules also around this, we have some certain rules which they abide with and yeah they are all good girls.

CB: And how did they get to be here did their families send them or did the schools decide who should come?

RT: It is normally the dropouts, not the schools. So it is those young girls who have no second chance in going for education and all that. So we normally pick up drop out students, so the girls coming here they are drop outs. So they are those girls that they just hang around the house with nothing and then we tried to empower them give them some skills so that they can go back and then they can earn a living out of what we teach them here.

CB: And is it successful, is it working do you think?

RT: Yes very much, it is very much successful. After they go back they do some, some of the things they do, they go back and they do some like paper beads, they do cooking and all this. And some of the products which they think they can sell from the rural areas they give it to us and then we sell it for them and then we give them back the money.

CB:  And is it satisfying for you to see them grow and become more confident?

RT: Oh yes it is very satisfying and we are happy that our goal has been met we are empowering them we are giving them second chances.