The Design & Technology Institute (DTI) has graduated 600 artisans from the Volta Region in precision quality training through a partnership with the Ho Technical University.

The programme, which is a collaboration with the MasterCard Foundation, is engineered to transform the beneficiaries from non-formal artisans to formal artisans.

It is expected to help them streamline their operations to align with international standards and produce products as such.

The beneficiaries were trained in models that comprised the precision quality curriculum, such as teamwork, changing to grow, financial management, social media marketing, ensuring a safe working environment, and others.

They were provided with working tools to facilitate their trades in fashion designing, welding, beautician, carpentry, masonry, aluminium fabrication, mechanical and electrical engineering, among others.

The Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Manager for the Transforming TVET Livelihood Project, Phase Two of DTI, Edwin Fayorse, said the programme was tailored to help change the mindset of the artisans and their approach to work, helping them to harness their potential for possible growth.

He further indicated that the programme is in two folds, which consist of training and monitoring and evaluation, to track how the training would manifest in the operations of beneficiaries.

“DTI has a very powerful monitoring and evaluation department, which is tasked with monitoring. We are not just going to give them the platform for learning and teaching, but we are also going to equip them to enable them to do their work diligently.”

“These artisans you see here are like slot pulsa marbles to us; we track them over time to see how their work has been able to improve over a period of time,” he said.

The Head of the Entrepreneurship Department of the Ho Technical University, Dr. Daniel Agbeko, emphasised the important role of the programme in positioning artisans to become on par with their peers across the world, enabling them to churn out products of world standard.

“The programme is very, very beneficial; some of them left the classroom a very long time ago. Most of them are using smartphones just for calling purposes, but we make them aware that you can use a phone as a social media tool to advertise your business.

“Because I told them that your network is your net worth. How many people are connected to you on social media is a factor of how rich you are,” he said.

He said that the three-day program was well-packed with requisite models to provide the beneficiaries with soft skills that play a pivotal role in the program.

“We hope that DTI will continue to fund a programme like this so that, going forward, the masses will benefit,” he noted, adding that the primary objective is to reduce unemployment and crime in the country.

“There are a lot of armed robbers on the streets right now, and there are a lot of people who are not working right now. But if we train these people and give them this equipment, they will intend to employ all these unemployed on the streets so that you and I, when we are driving our cars around, will be safe,” he explained.

A beneficiary, Florence Kugbleafe, said she was enlightened by the programme, learning financial management, savings, how to cooperate with her apprentice, nurturing a teamwork spirit at the workplace for enhanced productivity, and other things.

She said there would be a drastic change in running the day-to-day affairs of her 7-year-old fashion enterprise, hoping to witness steady progress.

“I have observed that the programme is good. We now have new ideas on how to run our enterprises,” she said.

Another beneficiary, Justine Agba, shared some of the important skills he learnt, such as record keeping and safety.

He promised to apply the knowledge at his workplace and share the lessons learnt with his colleagues.