“Lifeline Nehemiah Projects turn around lives of young people”
-Executive Director
By Abdul Hassan Fackie
The Executive Director of the Lifeline Nehemiah Projects at Kuntorloh in the east of Freetown has said that Lifeline offers young people the opportunity to reclaim their lives and realize their full potentials.
Addressing students and stakeholders at the Grand Launching of the Skills Development Project at the Hotel 5-10 in Kissy on Thursday, 22nd April, 2021, Mr. Prince Tommy Williams
paid glowing tribute to the Founder of the Lifeline Nehemiah Projects, the late Rev. Richard Mandewa Cole whose vision for the young people of Sierra Leone he described as prophetic as his work has continued to rehabilitate thousands of young men and women and transform them into useful citizens who are contributing to the socio-economic development of the country.
Mr. Williams revealed that since the start of Lifeline in 1996, the institution has provided a home to over one thousand five hundred boys and girls, created educational and professional training facilities for thousands more, most of whom have become professionals and positively impacting their families, communities and the country.
He further disclosed that in partnership with Lifeline Network International, the Big Lottery and Comic Relief, under the Betteh Tumara Vocational and Technical Training Institute, Lifeline has equipped over one thousand, two hundred young Sierra Leoneans with Income generating and vocational and technical skills from between 2012 to 2018.
He also revealed that in 2020 Lifeline accessed funding from the World Bank through the Government of Sierra Leone to train about three hundred young men and women in Information Technology, Hospitality, Motor Mechanics, Electrical Installation and Plumbing.
Mr. Williams maintained that their vocational and technical training programmes are designed to lay the foundation to obtain significant and sustained reduction in youth unemployment in the country in line with Sierra Leone’s Medium Term National Development Plan from 2019-2023 which is geared towards youth employment and empowerment and stresses focus on a New Direction for improving people’s lives through education, inclusive growth and building a resilient economy.
He concluded that for eighteen months the project will provide equal access to three hundred youths to be trained in skills, get internships, be given life skills, literacy, numeracy, mentorship and hands on training in order to enable them to secure jobs or create jobs for themselves.
In his remarks, the Head of Training, Betteh Tumara Vocational and Technical Institute, Mr. Jabba Pessima, stated that the training project which started in 2012 is designed to give skills to young people to make them self employable and self reliant, as well as be trainers of other young people.
He reiterated that their major target are young vulnerable people, especially girls and women.
Mr. Pessima pointed out that their training courses are designed to be relevant to the job market.
He disclosed that they have a consortium of employers all over the country where they send their students for internship practicals, noting that most students have gained employment where they have been sent for practicals.
He also explained that they train their students in basic English Language and Mathematics to enable them communicate well and make quotations and estimates.
Earlier, the Chairman of the ceremony, who is also the Lead Mentor at Lifeline Nehemiah Projects, Pastor Albert Bob Dimoh, explained that in launching the Skills Development Project which is funded by the World Bank, they want the nation to know about the project and the positive impact that the training project has had and continues to have on the youths of the country over the years.
He stated that another reason was for them to stress their useful partnership with the Skills Training Department of the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education.
Pastor Dimoh maintained that the Betteh Tumara training projects has proved that the young people can be redeemed from idleness, crime, teenage pregnancy and become useful citizens of the country.
He revealed that they also mentor students wherein they counsel them as well as settle minor disputes that they may encounter.
Highlights of the programme were the testimonies by some past students of the Betteh Tumara Technical and Vocational Institute and contributions from Chief Ya Alimamy Bangura, the Limba Section Chief at Kuntorloh, Chief Alimamy Wusu Kamara Kapen, the Temne Section Chief at Kuntorloh, the Councilor and the Police, all of whom paid glowing tribute to the good work of Lifeline Nehemiah Projects in their communities and the country as a whole and registered their continued support to them in order to enable achieve their objectives.