Salifu Awini is a 24 year old hearing/speech impaired person resident in Garu in northern Ghana. At childhood he was said to have contracted severe cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) and this had a telling on his disability. His parents were peasant farmers and were beset with poverty in the face of inadequate livelihoods and low incomes. Under the circumstances, Salifu’s parents opted to enrol his siblings into elementary schools but left him to his fate. They indicated that they did not see the need to send a person with disability to school. Thus, Salifu was isolated and lived a lonely life and was mostly at home whilst his siblings attended school.

The CBR field staff in their routine community survey identified Salifu and subsequently registered him for intervention. Through the support of Giving for Change initiative and PWS&D, the PCBR –Garu project team bought a sewing machine for him and subsequently enrolled him for skills training in dressmaking skills/tailoring. He also received additional skills in petty trades, soap production skills and the management skills of small business enterprises. He successfully graduated in 2022. Currently, salifu is self-employed and undertakes both sewing and petty trades to earn a living. He earns up GHS480 per month from his business to meet his basic needs.