Shabelle Skills Square is a TVET center built and managed by Stichting Kaalo Nederland. This education center is built for the dwellers of Camp Shabelle and Waberi village of Garowe city to benefit from. It offers hands-on TVET skills that prepare the learners to become higly-skilled learners.
The number of the unemployed youth in Puntland swells every year, and this doesn’t change despite the numerous graduates our universities produce yearly. This is because the new graduates lack the skills needed in the market. Skills like electrician, plumber, carpenter, mechanic and fashion designers are not taught in the local universities, yet those are amongst the most demanded skills. Kaalo Nederland built this TVET center to fill that gap.
Empowering and educating the poor women living in the IDP camps is one of Kaalo Nederland’s core missions. Based on this, Kaalo Nederland has successfully implemented a Women empowerment project that trained 70 unemployed and unskilled women with the use of tailoring machines. They were taught how to measure, design and tailor clothes in different styles.
These women were taught practical sewing and tailoring skills that will benefit them and their families for years to come. As most of these women are the breadwinners of their families, they are now able to provide for their households well by putting the acquired skills to good practice. Some of them have already started their own tailoring businesses. Empowerment and educational projects are known to be more efficient and sustainable than the feeding programs most of humanitarian organizations offer. Equipping the people with right skills enables them elevate their living standard and gradually join the middle class. Having that in mid, Kaalo Nederland aspires to advocate and implement such projects.