The project, Network for Enterprise Development through Sewing for Girls, dubbed ‘Needles 4 girls’ (N4G) is aimed at taking young women from deprived areas who have genuine interest in learning fashion design, to equip them with fashion related employable skills.It is also to empower them to be self-sufficient and fend for their families.

Mrs Bawumia said the project would also transform the lives of at 1,500 deprived girls combining a variety of methodologies to pick, groom, train, equip, and set up vibrant fashion related business across the country.

She said the meeting was aimed at engaging the minds of stakeholders on the ‘Needles for girls’ project which is a project to be rolled out by the Samira Empowerment and Humanitarian Projects, (SEHP).

SEHP is a non-profit organisation that has four core mandates, education, health, women empowerment as well as entrepreneurial development, with its mission to facilitate self-sufficiency in women and break the cycle of poverty through diverse social interventions.

She noted that the fashion industry in Ghana over the years continued to experience flourishing growth owning in part to the demand for quality products by the lower, expanding middle and upper classes.

Mrs Bawumia noted that high unemployment among the youth with girls being the most affected and vulnerable had culminated in the idea to roll out the Needles 4 girls project to give the girls the opportunity to convert their talents and interest into viable fashion businesses.

She commended the GIZ for their commitment of 450,000 Euros to the project, expressing the hope that by the end of the project, they would have positively impacted, affected and transformed the lives of families through empowering the girls.

Mrs Bawumia urged the participants who were carefully selected from the industry to bring out their best throughout the deliberations in order to be able to structure the project to achieve the desired results.

The ‘Needles for girls’ project seeks to combine various methodologies to train, teach and groom deprived girls in the fashion related profession so that in the end they could either set up their own business or belong to a supply chain in the fashion related businesses in existence.

It intends to apply 80 percent hands on training, and 20 percent theory sections as well as adopt a tailor made cut out curriculum. The project, expected to start in April 2018 would capture 1500 young girls, engaged in fashion and its related businesses, by reaching out to 400 young girls within the first year, 200 for tailoring and dress making, and another 200 for other fashion businesses, as well as 500 girls in year two and 600 in year three.

 At the outcome level, at least 700 of these girls are expected to be in new or improved employment and job opportunities, and another 800 within the same number having improved their income. It would also explore the existence of already existing credit unions to provide a startup and enterprise support programmes needed for their businesses.

Three fashion training centres would be created for the training of the girls.

The northern zone comprising of Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions, the middle zone comprising of Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Volta and the Eastern Regions and the Coastal zones comprising of Greater Accra, Western and Central Regions. The three-year training courses would cover areas in dress making and tailoring, beads making, shoe making, entrepreneurship, personal grooming, business ethics, sexual reproductive health, health insurance, occupational health and safety among others.