It is properly recognised that in Ghana a lot of of the most thriving entrepreneurs and wealthiest men and women are women. They are popular for dominating specific sectors of the overall economy, proudly owning hundreds of taxis, tipper trucks and fishing boats. On a smaller sized scale, girls are widely included in buying and selling, food stuff processing and some craft industries. From the time that the Engineering Consultancy Centre (TCC) of the Kwame Nkrumah College of Science and Know-how (KNUST), Kumasi, opened on 11 January 1972, a lot of of the individuals calling for support to up grade their enterprises have been ladies. Nonetheless in the vast casual industrial area, Suame Magazine, Kumasi, with its countless numbers of workshops and tens of hundreds of learn craftsmen and apprentices, there was not a one woman engaged in any engineering action, and it was not right up until the 1990s that a critical effort and hard work was made to adjust the predicament.
In the early days of the TCC some of the most prosperous businesses assisted by university consultants had been owned and operate by gals. Mrs Clara Appiah successfully developed Afro-wigs from sisal hemp fibre from 1972 until eventually her premature death in 1974. Madam Offeh played a main function in her husband’s animal feed business enterprise, established as they normally remarked all through the United Nations Worldwide Women’s Yr (1975), and Vera Gambrah ran a flourishing cleaning soap generating enterprise right up until the tiny scale market was obliterated by IMF dictates in 1985. Inspired by these early successes, many a lot more females arrived forward with smaller sector projects to acquire gain of new technologies turning out to be out there by way of the TCC in textiles and foodstuff processing. Immediately after the introduction of modern-day beekeeping in the early 1980s several women of all ages grew to become included in establishing smaller apiaries. From its founding in 1975, this initiative to include extra girls in small scale company was tremendously encouraged and supported by the Nationwide Council of Gals and Advancement (NCWD), but all over the 1970s and 1980s only one particular female came forward to the TCC in Kumasi with an interest in setting up an engineering organization, and she was not from Suame Magazine but from Tema.
Tema is about 300 kilometres from Kumasi on the south coastline, east of Accra. At first a little fishing village, Tema was formulated by the govt of Kwame Nkrumah (1957 – 1966) into a present day harbour managing most of Ghana’s imports. This advancement captivated a lot of industries, significant and little. In this extra progressive natural environment, Georgina Degbor had skilled as a centre lathe turner. She arrived to the TCC in Kumasi in 1986 with a request to be allocated 1 of the employed Colchester Triumph centre lathes predicted to get there right before the stop of the year. Georgina’s expertise were being assessed at the Suame Intermediate Technological know-how Transfer Device (ITTU) and the selection was taken to help her commence her very own compact engineering business. Having said that, as Georgina lived in Tema, the make a difference was handed to the Tema ITTU when the Free of charge Task begun there in February 1987. She set up her machine in workshop area employed from the ITTU and turned a purpose model demonstrating to other youthful ladies that engineering craft abilities had been no extended a male protect. With a further educated feminine technician, Elizabeth Asiamah, on the ITTU team, it was not long in advance of the Tema ITTU was attracting women as effectively as boys on to its apprenticeship programme.
In 1987, the Free of charge Undertaking took more than the Tamale ITTU from the TCC. It shocked many seasoned engineering instructors that in this remote northern outpost, with its effectively rural setting, women arrived ahead to use for specialized apprenticeships on an equivalent scale to Tema. The 1st era of apprentices in Tema and Tamale served their time, and most of them went on to establish their possess workshops, both as sole proprietorships or with two or a few artisans in partnership. The progress of women in engineering was continuous but gradual, so in the mid-1990s the TCC joined with Intermediate Technological innovation Ghana (ITGhana), a Tema-centered NGO, to mount a ‘Women in Engineering’ project supported by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Young gals who experienced graduated from the ITTU apprenticeship programme had been recruited to have out a nationwide survey of engineering enterprises and technical universities to establish the gals who have been previously skilled or beneath training in an engineering craft. At the exact time workshop entrepreneurs and grasp craftsmen had been inspired to recruit apprentices of both genders and commonly to take part in the Ladies in Engineering undertaking. The task culminated in a nationwide discussion board, held in the British Council Corridor in Accra, attended by federal government officials, complex instructors, workshop house owners and most of the feminine experts and apprentices discovered by the study. A central function of the discussion board was the presentation of the life tales of some of the revolutionary ladies workshop entrepreneurs. The party was regarded as a important achievements it was perfectly described in the media, alerted govt to the problem and the possibility and modified the perspective of numerous male workshop homeowners. The engineering business in Ghana may possibly not have become an equal prospect employer right away but a considerable move had been taken in that direction.