Personnel from 35 non-governmental agencies working in the health sector have undergone training to improve their skills, responsibilities and knowledge to discharge their duties.

Organised by Social Enterprise Ghana under the auspices of Anesvad Foundation from Spain, the organisations were drawn from NGOs supporting young people, women and communities that were affected by various health challenges, especially those in the area of neglected tropical diseases, leprosy, bulimia ulcer, sleeping sickness among others.

Training

They were trained in areas such as identification of neglected tropical diseases, how they could deliver on supporting and training the communities affected by Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), Opportunities for Social Entrepreneurs in the Health Sector and Methods and Framework for Measuring Social Impact.

Others were: Ways of identifying social health problems, health business planning, idea generation, marketing and branding, funding and financial management, corporate governance, social accounting and audit, managing business finance, models of health social enterprise.

Capacity

The Executive Director of Social Enterprise Ghana, Edwin Zu-Cudjoe, noted that this step was towards the improvement of the capacity of these health NGOs so that they can better serve and deliver on their mandate.

“The best thing that we can do as a company that deals with NGOs is to deliver direct technical support and provide them with additional training and guidance in the work that they do.

To effectively address the unique challenges and goals of NGOs, it is essential to implement training programmes that are tailored to the specific needs of these organisations,” he said.

Mr Zu-Cudjoe continued, “It is our expectation that these six days will guide them and improve their capacities so that they can better serve the communities that are most affected by NTDs.”
 

Selection

On how the firms were selected for the training, Mr Zu-Cudjoe said, “These 35 health NGOs and social enterprises were selected out of about 200 NGOs and social enterprises that expressed interest in receiving this training. We actually organised a one-month call for expression of interest.”

“A team sat down, evaluated these 200 social enterprises and NGOs that expressed interest, and out of these we selected the 35 that are viable and making a lot more impact in their various communities.”

Consequently, he said from the 35, ten would be selected to receive training and support and also guidance on how they could have a lot more impact in the communities that they worked in.