In our vocational training program, over 40 trainees learn a variety of job skills including: sewing, cloth dyeing, hair design, woodworking, motorcycle repair, and construction.

Each trainee is matched with a business that agrees to train them for two years. Learning progress is assessed through interviews of both the trainee and the local business owner. Additionally, families and trainees meet with the project coordinator to ensure that everyone is committed to and benefitting from the program. Engage Globally provides training fees and required supplies such as tools for each trade. In some cases, we also provide funding for transportation and a food stipend. 

Contributing to Engage Globally's larger focus on gender equity, two-thirds of the trainees are young women. Rukia, pictured here, is shown graduating from her regional weaving program, wearing a dress that she designed and sewed for the ceremony. She is standing with Fatawu, a graduate of our youth education program and now the lead teacher at the Kulaa community learning center.

When trainees graduate, they are typically hired by the businesses where they have trained. However, some graduates want to open their own small businesses in their home communities. Engage Globally supports business creation by funding land purchase or rental, construction of a business facility, and provision of tools, such as sewing machines. Pictured on the left is a seamstress business opened by three program graduates. This sewing center was one of the first formal woman owned businesses in our partner communities.

​Today, the shop co-owners are training new vocational students. Other graduates have opened their own businesses in bicycle repair, hair design, and wood working. Many of the businesses we support help to preserve traditional cultural practices such as weaving and smock design.