Vocational Training for Youth July 1995 - June 1996 Brobo, Cote d'Ivoire Funded by: Voluntary Deposits for International Aid (Japan) Implemented by: ICA Cote d'Ivoire, ICA Japan and local people
Brobo is a county with a population of 30,000. The living standard is low; only a few of the 64 villages in the county have electricity or running water. The high birth rate and the influx of refugees from the neighboring countries also deteriorate the plight of young people. Many of them go to a big city Abidjan to look for a job or idle their days away in their village. The project started with the purpose of giving the youth formal vocational training to get a decent job and revitalizing the industry in the region. The total of 72 people participated in courses in carpentry, hairdressing, tailoring and weaving. Particularly, hairdressing trainees had a three-week intensive course taught by a Japanese hairdressing expert. The training center graduates are planning to establish a hairdressing and dressmaking cooperative.
	1. Hairdressing trainees with Akira Uo, ICA:Japan staff, and Kaoru Goto, the Japanese hairdressing expert. The training will promote economic self-reliance through small-scale business development and appropriate technology transfer.
People in Brobo
	2. The market on a main street in Brobo, the capital of Brobo Sub-Prefecture.
	3. The marketplace is quite empty except for on Tuesdays, the market day. Many shops are open-air shops run by street vendors.
	4. One of the villages in Brobo Sub-Prefecture. The houses are made of mud and the roof made of straw.
	5. People in Brobo live on a staple diet of yams, cassava, corn and bananas. 1 kilogram of rice costs 4-500 CFA Franc ( $ 0,8-$ 1 ), which is out of the average person's reach.
	6. Many men are out of town to work elsewhere as seasonal workers and mostly only women and children remain in the village.
	7. Young men and women in the village hope to gain vocational skills from the training project.
Vocational Training Center
	8. The youth training center is in a compound of 0.5 hectares is conveniently situated about 300 miles east of Brobo. This building was built by the Brobo government for the community but was never used before the government donated it to ICA.
	9. Local ICA staff explain the training center's activities to the village chief.
	10. Trainees listen to the lecture in the management class. They learn the basics of economics and business administration to necessare to run one's own shop after finishing the course.
Carpentry Course
	11. The hired carpentry teacher, a professional carpenter in the town of Brobo, and the trainees. In the 1st year. The trainees will be learning to make easy-to-assemble furniture like stools, chairs, and tables.
	12. The carpenter's workshop, a 4 week preperatory course, is near the youth training center. Six trainees take this course.
	14. The trainees learn to cut lumber by machine.
	15. All the trainees enjoy working in the 4-week-course and look forward to the next advanced course.
	16. Trainees are making doors.
	17. Measuring a door that was just finished.
Tailoring Course
	18. The trainees brought the sewing machines back to their homes everyday until the center had doors and windows installed in order to prevent theft.
	19. The teacher draws the patterns of a children's clothes.
	20. The trainees cut out the patterns according to the teacher's instructions.
	21. After learning pattern cutting, the trainees begin to sew with the careful guidance of the teachers. 17 students are in this class.
	22. First, the students learn to sew children's clothes. The teacher is checking the clothes one of the trainees made.
	23. Next, the students learn to sew woman's dresses which they will later wear.
	24. One of the trainees is doing ironing with a charcoal-heated iron.
	25. This is the only male trainee in the dressmaking course. He always talks to his friends about the training center's activities to get more young men participants.
	26. Trainees proudly show the children's clothes they made.
Hairdressing Course
	27. During the first few months trainees used mannequin heads for practice.
	28. Hairsetting with a hairpick.
	29. Hair relaxation. First the hair is divided into 4-6 sections to apply skin protection cream.
	30. Then the relaxing cream is applied.
	31. The cream is washed off after 15-20 minutes. Water from a nearby well is used due to the lack of running water.
	32. Ms. Kaoru Goto, the Japanese hairdressing expert sent by ICA: Japan, is putting the finishing touches on the model's hair.
	33. The latest hairstyle designed by Ms. Goto, who is from Sendai, Japan.
	34. Safiatou, one of the trainees, and the model for whom she cut and set the hair. The trainee imitated the hairstyle at which she is pointing.
	35. Ms. Goto teaches the basics of haircutting after the hair relaxation The participants and Ms. Goto enjoyed working with each other.
	36. Ms. Goto worked in the training center for 3 weeks of intensive training and the hairdressing trainees learned a lot from her.
	37. Some lessons were taught at the well-equipped American Lady Beauty Institute in Bouake, the school in which the teachers regularly work. Trainees practice facial massage and make-up.
Weaving Course
	38. The warp and the woof are made out of thread like this.
	39. Spinning the thread to go across the fabric.
	40. This trainee winds the thread by walking back and forth between two pegs hammered into the ground.
	41. In weaving, you need a large space in the open air to stretch out the thread to be woven.
	42. First, trainees work on the basic pattern, a combination of blue and white, then move on to intermediate and advanced techniques.
	43. The woven cloth and the happy trainees.
	44-45. The trainees weave an advanced pattern with the weaving machine.
	46. Making traditional cloth is a time-consuming job. It takes about 1 week to make a piece of cloth.
	47. Vincent, the weaving teacher at the training center, has been weaving for 15 years since he was eleven years of age.
	48-49. To make a men's formal garment, 16-18 pieces are sewn together. For a woman's jacket and skirt two 11-piece-garments are needed.

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