From Idle Days to Independent Dreams.

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TUMA Project Is Reshaping Lives in Ghana's North East Region.

In the quiet towns and villages of Ghana's North East Region, a quiet transformation is underway. For years, many #young people here faced the same story: no vocational #skill, no capital to learn one, and few visible paths to a stable future. Some spent their days on household chores or farm work. Others considered leaving home altogether, drawn to the cities by the promise of a better life. Today, through the TUMA Project's eco-preneurship and vocational skills training, five young women across weaving, beauty, and fashion enterprises are proving that opportunity, once placed within reach, can change everything.

A Life Redirected

For Issahaku Zainab of Nahima Imoro Enterprise, the years before TUMA were marked by drift. "Before the TUMA Project, I spent most of my days sleeping and doing household chores. During the rainy season, I would often accompany my family to the farm," she recalls. The uncertainty took a toll: "I felt like I had no clear direction in life, and this caused me a great deal of psychological distress." She had even begun to consider migrating to Accra or Kumasi to work as a kayayoo (a head porter) convinced that her hometown held no future for her. That changed with enrollment in the project. "For me, the opportunity to learn a vocational trade is the most significant change the TUMA Project has brought into my life. It has given me hope, a sense of purpose, and confidence in my future." Where she once could not tie a gele, Zainab can now do so with confidence, and she has added makeup application and professional eyebrow shaping to her growing list of skills.

Issahaku Nuria, of Afia Suhuyini Fashion Enterprise, tells a similar story of drift giving way to direction. "Before joining the TUMA Project, I was simply living from day to day because I had nothing meaningful to do." Now she cuts fabric and sews shirts including, with visible pride, a shirt for her own child. "This has greatly boosted my confidence and given me hope for the future," she says, adding that even before completing her training, she "already feel[s] accomplished" knowing she is building skills that will shape a better future for herself and her family.

Skills Once Out of Reach

For many participants, the barrier to learning a trade was never ambition, it was access. Salifu Nafishatu, now training at Sagri Peace and Love Weaving Shop, had long wanted to learn weaving but lacked the tools and money to pay for training. "The TUMA Project has given me the rare opportunity to learn a vocational skill," she says. "It has been highly beneficial because it has given me hope and a brighter future." In just a few months, Nafishatu has gone from being unable to tie a length to independently warping and weaving with little or no supervision skills, she says, she "never imagined" she would acquire.

Adam Ramatu, of Lucky Lady Fashion Enterprise, faced the same obstacle from a different trade. She had been assisting a family member with groundnut paste processing, always wanting to learn vocational skills but unable to afford the fees. Since joining TUMA, her progress has been dramatic: from not knowing how to thread a sewing machine or fix a broken thread, to confidently threading machines, sewing her own shirts, and creating dresses out of small fabric scraps. "For me, the most significant change is that I can now sew a dress on my own — a skill I never thought I would acquire."

Yussif Barchisu, who once earned a living selling yoghurt because she could not afford skills training, has undergone a similar shift at Muky Beauty and Decoration Palace. "Before I started the training, I could not shape eyebrows, tie a gele, or even apply makeup on myself. Today, I can confidently perform all these tasks, and my skills continue to improve with regular practice." For Barchisu, the significance goes beyond technique: "I am now acquiring a vocational skill that will enable me to support myself and take care of my parents in the future."

Beyond the Craft: Entrepreneurship and a New Way of Seeing Waste

TUMA's impact reaches beyond vocational technique; its entrepreneurship bootcamp has reshaped how participants think about business and resourcefulness alike. Barchisu points to one lesson that has stayed with her long after the session ended: "the principle of affordable loss, which has changed the way I think about starting and managing a business." Nuria similarly credits the bootcamp with sharpening her sense of how to manage a business so it can "grow and succeed," alongside lessons in cleanliness and interpersonal skills that have improved how she relates to others.

Perhaps most striking is the shift in how several participants now view waste. Nafishatu, who had never considered that waste materials could become useful products, now collects and recycles materials into mopping sticks she uses at home. "This experience has changed the way I view waste and has inspired me to think creatively about generating income from locally available resources," she reflects. Ramatu describes a parallel transformation in her own tailoring practice, having learned to convert offcuts and waste fabric into products like Asesawa and mopping sticks "This has helped me appreciate the value of recycling and inspired me to think creatively about making productive use of waste materials."

A Common Thread

Across weaving looms, sewing machines, and makeup kits, a common thread runs through these five stories: young women who once saw few options for themselves now speak of hope, confidence, and self-sufficiency. What unites Nafishatu, Zainab, Barchisu, Ramatu, and Nuria is not just the acquisition of a trade, but a broader shift in how they see their own future as something they now have the tools, and the belief, to build.

As the TUMA Project continues its work across the North East Region, these stories offer an early but powerful signal of what eco-preneurship and vocational training grounded in local resources and real skills can achieve: not just employable young people, but confident ones, ready to support themselves, their families, and their communities.

TUMA Project | Wilde Ganzen | 2025-2027

Documented by TUMA project team.

2026