AMONG THE persons with the tag ‘exhibitor’ at the ongoing international TVET symposium at Gikondo grounds is Chantal Musaniwabo.

The 25-year-old woman has a stand to exhibit her prowess in culinary and food processing skills.

Were it not for the technical skills she is putting to use at the Expo, she says she would be staying home with her aunt with nothing much to do other than house chores.

Musaniwabo is exhibiting courtesy of Rwanda Adolescent Girls Initiative(AGI), a World Bank funded project at USD2.7 million (Rwf1,800,900,000) and implemented by the Ministry of Gender and family promotion and Workforce Development Authority and Imbuto Foundation.  

Musaniwabo learnt of the program through a radio commercial and later at an announcement during the monthly Umuganda community work sessions. 

"I went to the sector office and was chosen to participate in a two-week training before beginning the ongoing six months training at Nyarugunga Vocational Centre. Since then I have not only learnt culinary skills to enable me to work in any restaurant in the city, I have also learnt business skills and life skills,” she said.

After her graduation in February next year, she plans to team up with other colleagues from the program to put up a cooperative.

"We can make a cooperative of about ten girls because together we will pool our funds and put up a business and grow economically,” she explained.

Musaniwabo is one of 672 girls participating in the two year pilot project that targets to provide technical skills to at least 2700 girls by the time the project is terminated in December 2014. The training that began in January this year targets disadvantaged vulnerable young women between the ages of 15-24. 

With the objectives to improve employment and incomes as empowerment of adolescent girls, the program works with the sectors to identify and screen participants for the program. The Adolescent Girls Initiative is a worldwide initiative that works in post conflict countries.

"We work with sectors. We use sector education officers and also have a committee at sector level to identify and screen potential participants,” said Winnie Muhumuza, a Girls Education Specialist with WDA and AGI.

"After completion of the six months training program in various technical fields like agri-business, culinary arts, arts and crafts and food processing they are expected to form co-operatives. During the training we give them a little stipend for small expenses like transport and also have savings for them at a Sacco (Savings and Credit Cooperative). On completion, they will use the savings we have made for them to put up enterprises. We also encourage them to take internships in established enterprises which could and up in employment,” Muhumuza said.

In determining what skills to be taught to whom, Muhumuza says the implementers consider the greatest challenges in the sectors they target for them to impart skills that will be practical for the participants.

"We look at the most prominent challenge in an area and factors like how practical it will be. If it is a rural area, it will not have much impact imparting culinary skills since there are few restaurants for them to work in,” she said. 

Apart from technical skills, the program also builds life skills and entrepreneurship skills in the young women to enable them deal with their own personal challenges and keep them away from vices like prostitution or early pregnancies. 

In the course of the implementation of the program, AGI and WDA have been overwhelmed by the numbers of applicants seeking to join the program.

"We have very many applicants but we can’t take them all. The number we reach is quite small, we wish we would be able to reach out to a larger number. Another challenge the program implementers are experiencing during unrolling of the program is that at times during the course of the program, girls could get pregnant and have to get into motherly roles before they are done with training,” Muhumuza says. 

At the end of the stipulated time in December 2014, the project will come to a closure and its future will be dependent on the evaluation to be done thereafter to determine if it will be scaled country-wide to reach out to more people or not. 

"Something that helps change the livelihoods of young women for the rest of their life is not something I would put a price on, I hope to see it scale in the future,” Muhumuza said.