|
Education
ICT in Education
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Education
If you are looking at this website right now you recognize the power that computers, and especially the internet hold. What we hope to do is to share the promise of these technological developments with our targeted communities in Ghana. This should result into access to information, sharing and making use of the information coming from all over the world for overall growth and development politically, economically, and educationally and others. We aim to support the building, maintenance and running of computer and internet communications in the Klaas Haven School and later to extend the program to other schools as part of the Rural Manpower Development program. We plan to provide this support at a minimum cost to the rural areas, enabling students to complete their education with basic computer knowledge. We then plan to extend the range of our program to grow along with the needs of our students. Later development of the program will generate funds to support other Thirdway projects such as the Multi- purpose Human Rights / entrepreneurial education and NGOs resource centre programme as well as the Micro Credit business development programme. Together, these programmes are the heart of our poverty alleviation plan. A Project proposal is available to all interested parties upon request.
Human Rights Education
Human Rights in Education
Our target audience is broad: professionals, ordinary men and women, children, the military, and the police. The center will also offer international teaching and learning programs, a residential program for study abroad students. We will also offer the curriculum online for those unable to travel.
Teaching and learning materials will be developed at the center. Research into the links between human rights and development and other human rights related topics will be investigated. Issues like philanthropy, both local and international, the art of giving and receiving will receive equal attention. Local languages shall be used to reach the people. One important target group children aged 4 years and up. We believe if you catch them young with the message and language of human rights, then more than half the work is done before they reach adulthood. We work towards demystifying human rights and bringing them closer to ordinary lives by introducing human rights education lessons into the Ghanaian educational system and later to other African countries. There is room for people who want to adopt parts of the project. Project proposal is available upon request.
Education ProgramsEducation Programs
Economic Development
Tourism
Tourism
Our tourism program aims not only at income generation and the appreciation of nature's beauty. We have a philosophy of promoting human rights through tourism. Thirdway’s Tourism Department identifies tourism opportunities in the southern regions of Ghana in particular in the Volta region and further develops them in cooperation with local entrepreneurs. We focus on tourism because it can be a vital tool to realize human rights. Specifically, the direct interaction between locals and tourists aids in the achievement of peace and prevention of conflicts. It brings people of the world together so that we can form a clearer and hence more understanding picture of each other. In implementing this, we intend on offering very modest yet comfortable accommodation in traditional family homes with Ghanaian settings. This will facilitate greater personal exchange and allow for deeper mutual understanding. The care and protection of fauna, flora and the environment form part and parcel of our tourism agenda. We need assistance from entrepreneurs who want to team up with us to further develop and improve upon facilities. Drawing and redrawing maps, taking pictures, renovating existing structures, preparing visual ads, are some of the things we may require to achieve the most out of the possibilities of tourism.
Contact us by e-mail or telephone for further information
ICT
Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
to support local business development
Doing business in our fast developing world is no longer limited to the butter and bread trade. It has become complex and requires the use of technology to maximise the benefits and reduce unnecessary waste. At Thirdway our entrepreneur training program is aimed at using technology to teach our clients in the rudiments of setting up and running business successfully. We shall also us the technology in the production and marketing process of products from our clients. One can think of the technology of fish farming and preservation and online export of products like local soap and weaving cloths from our microcredit programs.
Micro Credit
Micro Credit or Micro Financing
At Thirdway our overall aim is to improve the economic and social situation of the people by increasing access to income-generating activities and by providing required training to manage their activities. In general, micro-credit programs extend small loans to very poor people for self-employment projects that generate income, allowing them to care for themselves and their families. These initiatives can come in a variety of packages, serve a wide cross section of client base, and the financial product can be delivered in a free standing mode or as an integral part of the services provided by a Community Based Financial Institution or a Credit Union. In general terms, they fill a gap left by mainstream commercial lenders who simply would not even consider lending to certain potential borrowers for a variety of reasons, thereby leaving them with no choice, other than to seek undesirable alternative sources of capital. The latter inevitably incur extremely high rates of interest, and this often leads to a vicious cycle of debt.
Those reasons could include (individually or in combination): • The amount is too small - most commercial lenders are not interested in making small loans. • Tainted or no credit history - most commercial lenders are reluctant to deal with young and/or first time borrowers with no credit history and certainly tend to shy away from lending to those they deem to be poor credit risks. • The loans are largely unsecured - most commercial lenders will require some form of asset based security whereas loans made by micro financiers may require no security other than a promise to repay.
Our microcredit program is aimed at helping all needy people in all segments of society. Our program differs from others in methodology. For example, an essential and compulsory requirement of our scheme is to educate clients on entrepreneurial skills/ basic business development and human rights, the latter being vital especially for our women folks. In addition compulsory savings is a pre-condition. These education programs precede the dispensation of the loan we believe they ensure maximum success. We serve existing local professional groups in the informal economic sector as well as the working poor in urban areas. These groups include:
BENEFITS:
GHANA The rate of unemployment and a reduction in real wages and salaries have increased the burden that our women have to shoulder in trying to support a family. Other features of the economic deterioration are: Rural-urban migration; Criminality; Poor education; many school drop-outs; Prostitution; teenage pregnancy; etc. The growth of sprawling informal sector settlements in our cities and towns is further evidence of how economic policy has impoverished and dehumanised our young men and women.
Human rights
Human rights in Economic Development
Even though not often recognized and acknowledged, the concept of human rights applies beyond the strictly political. Human beings have the right also to economic development, broadly construed. This includes those values and material conditions that are instrumental to and protective of working human beings. So, while we pursue and support economic development, we understand that it is constrained by other values. This is important to impart and it is heavily stressed in our educational materials.
|
Our first major educational programme is geared towards basic education at our School in Kasoa. Thirdway has organized to take children who otherwise might be staying in the house through schooling. Some are school dropout at such young age because the care and the financial means to sustain them at school are simply not there. The teaching staff and Volunteers have to go for them from their homes. An amazing revelation is a 13 year old girl who supposedly should be in junior high school by now is now in class three. This is because she was deprived of the right to education. She is very eager to go to school. Another touching experienced is that kids who are picked for school must be taken back and some do wait at the school till very late to be picked up. We wish we could provide the care needed but our resources are limited. The school has been doing this for the past 10 years.
This is in line with our holistic and integrated 5-pronged approach to solving developmental problems. (Read our methodology under ‘About Us’ on the website). If people are poor and cannot send their children to school, it does not make sense putting up the school. We should be able to help the parents send their children to school. Apart from school, people should be able to earn a living and this can enable the possibility of supporting other important aspects of normal life.
