The increasing demand for satellites in our various home’s country wide means that satellite installers are and will be in high demand. In all localities, households, chop bars, recreational centres, churches, schools among others have these digital tools for pleasure and work related. The satellite work value chain has always been a male dominated field and often seen as a job for only men. In the Upper West Region, observation shows that experts in this work are highly dominated by men. This profession does not require much money to startup but working knowledge on how to install systems, detect faults and proffer practical solution. It is not a risky business and can be done by all regardless of your gender.
As an organization that is geared towards bridging gender inequality, in an ever-digitizing world, our organization through the Youth Challenge Fund added satellite installation for women especially teenage mothers to benefit from particular project to bridge the wide digital gap and create decent alternative income for economic empowerment. In light of this, sixty-five (65) women made up of NSS persons, teenage mothers, cleaners at the Nadowli assembly and girls benefitted from this digital skill empowerment on how to install satellite, search for updates and new channels, resetting and assembling combo boxes in Nadowli.
Madam Safia Abdulai, the District Coordinating Director for the Nadowli Kaleo District who was present at the start of the training bemoaned the importance of the exercise. She was quoted as saying ‘’I am particularly happy that this project is centralized on women empowerment, especially the satellite installation which is a male dominated field. This district is one of the poorest in the Region and the country at large and so there is need to roll out more of such projects in the District. She thanked Plan International Ghana on behalf of the District Chief Executive. The coordinating director added that, the Assembly will also support in any way possible to ensure we have a successful project execution now and in the future. She particularly said from henceforth, the assembly and its various offices with satellites will rely on the services of these women whenever they have problems with their digital tools or buy new ones. She also promised to recommend their services to other departments.
The training continued early this year with visitations to various Senior High Schools in the Upper West Region. Gwollu Senior High, Kaleo Secondary Technical and Queen of Peace Senior High have thus far benefited from the satellite installation training. Fifteen (15) students from each school, who are always selected based on interest in professional satellite installation, were taken through rigorous training in scanning, resetting, and so on. A further fifteen out-of-school from each community visited also received professional training in satellite installation so that they can start something on their own since they could not complete their education. In effect, 90 people have benefited from our SKILLS DRIVE PROJECT between January and February this year.
All participants were provided with certificates of operations by Plan B Solutions and Necessary Aid Alliance.
Key Outcomes
- Beneficiaries learnt how to fix/setup a new satellite plate & decoder
- Participants were taken through how to scan/search for new channels, delete corrupted channels and delete unwanted channels
- Project beneficiaries were trained on how to reposition plates in the event of the disruptions of storms or strong winds.
- Beneficiaries were oriented on how to register their businesses with the District Assembly
