Background
St. Theresa Center for the Physically Challenged Abor, is a voluntary and non-profit making Organisation depending on the Catholic Diocese of Keta-Akatsi to cater for the welfare of the physically challenged in the Society. It was built by late Rev. Fr. Angelo Confalonieri, a Combonian missionary from Italy who worked in favour of the less privileged in the Volta region. The centre was commissioned officially on the 29th April 1989 by Lt. Gen. A. Quainoo.
The role St. Theresa Centre for the Handicapped Abor plays in supplementing Government efforts in the economic, physical and social rehabilitation of the physically handicapped and recently the mentally challenged in the Volta Region and Ghana in general cannot be overestimated as much has been achieved within the short period of its establishment.
For instance, the first batch of 18 trainees who completed their courses on 20th July 1991 was successful in the NVTI Grade II examinations conducted for them at the Centre. The 18 trainees were provided immediately with tools for the workshop as a measure to resettle and integrate them fully in their various communities.
Since then the story has been the same every year.
From 1991 to 2010, 406 handicapped students have graduated and more than 250 of them have already settled with their own workshop.
The main objectives of the Centre are:
- to welcome the physically challenged and assist in their rehabilitation,
- to provide technical and vocational skills to the physically challenged,
- to help them to procure the basic tools and materials after their training in order to establish their own workshops, and
- to assist them to integrate fully into working life and the communities in which they live.
The Vocational training programme pursued at the Centre covers full time courses in:
- Dressmaking
- Tailoring
- Broadloom weaving (textiles)
- Radio/TV Electronics Servicing
- ICT
- Leatherworks
- Printing Press
There is provision for part time courses in English language, Mathematics, Computer and business management.
The duration of the course is three years that prepares prospective trainees for National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) Grade II and Grade I Certificates, and for the Certificate of competency examination conducted by The Department of Social Welfare.
The Centre presently provides courses and services to two groups of people:
- Disabled persons, JSS leavers who are boarded in the centre.
- Able-bodied day students, mostly JSS leavers from and around Abor (not more than 2/3 of the total of the students.)
Admission to the Centre follows a fixed procedure with application forms, medical reports and interviews. Most students are polio-patients.
