Skills Ambassadors - a song for vocational training
In Ghana, working in the crafts and trade sector as a blue collar worker has a poor reputation and goes along with a low social status. Counteracting this attitude, the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) together with the GIZ project Ghana Skills Development Initiative (GSDI) and JT live, a local radio station, has produced a song and a video clip: "Adwuma-Pa" – good work.
The young actors are not professional singers. They are completing an apprenticeship training and occasionally sing and rap with friends. The song text and the video are strongly flavored by the young people’s actual experience. With a high degree of authenticity, they share with their audience that learning a trade or skill is not only important for one’s individual career but also for the economic stability of the whole country. Hence, the key message of the Ghana Skills song is on promoting the image of vocational training, musically staged and realistically portrayed in the work and training environment of five sectors – hair and beauty, garment and dressmaking, automotive repair, electronics and welding.
The song is on the radio already, and the video clip is screened at various vocational training events. They enjoy great popularity as they attract old and young alike with their hip- and highlife rhythms typical for Ghana.
The song “Adwuma-Pa” originated from the Ghana Skills Development Initiative (GSDI) which promotes the modernization of the traditional apprenticeship system in Ghana. The trades displayed in the song are also pilot sectors of GSDI, which is part of the program for sustainable economic development - a program assisted by the German Government via the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). GFA in a consortium with PLANCO and the Chamber of Commerce Hamburg implements GSDI on behalf of GIZ.
>> Article on GSDI pilot trainings in the Ghanaian Times
Photos: Mary Thackray
