About Us

About us

The Power Of Todays Women

Advocacy for Social Inclusion and Girls’ Education, commonly called “ASIGE” is in business to break the cycle of poverty by empowering rural women with sustainable skills for their livelihood.

Launched in 2017, ASIGE produces handcrafted wares and fashion accessories intricately woven by rural women primarily for export. The venture is currently registered as a company limited by guarantee and is headquartered in Sumbrungu in the Upper East Region of Ghana.

The company has a variety of six (6) key products often tailored to the unique specifications of its customers. These categories include shopping baskets, handbags, hats, laptop bags, pet houses, and decorative pieces. The venture also makes other hand-woven customized products such as lamp stands, placemats, and flower vases upon request. ASIGE products are uniquely positioned in the competitive handicraft market because every product is promoted with a story behind it. The venture currently employs up to 429 rural women to carry out its weaving production.

Our Mission

Our Greatest Mission

ASIGE seeks to improve the lives of young women and young girls in Northern Ghana through sustainable skills development and livelihood diversification.

Our Vision

Our Greatest Vision

ASIGE seeks to break the cycle of poverty through sustainable livelihood empowerment initiatives for women and young people in Ghana

Who We Are

Advocacy for Social Inclusion and Girls’ Education, commonly called “ASIGE” is in business to break the cycle of poverty by empowering rural women with sustainable skills for their livelihood.

no poverty

best education

good health

nutrition

No Poverty

ASIGE implements a wide range of programs that gears towards eliminating extreme poverty within our jurisdictions. Our first approach is about job creation through vocational skills training. This project has been implemented since 2020 to gives skills to young people to become business owners or employable. These forms of training include tailoring, Hairdressing, welding, textile weaving amongst others. 72% of all beneficiaries are teenage mothers and have dropped out of school. An example of how the vocational skills changes lives is a story of the 27year old Gifty Atampoka from Bongo district in the Upper East Region. She lost my father at an early age and was given out to a family to serve as a house girl in Accra and that was where she dropped out of school. Gifty, later moved from the house Girl to selling oranges at Mallam Junction high way and sleeping at Kaneshie (Street). Years later, she moved to Bolga to learn a trade as she was not making headway in my life. Her family forced me to marry a man at 17 years because of pregnancy and the husband maltreated her until she left the marriage and that’s when ASIGE came in to provide Gifty with skills in textile weaving. Today, she has a business with 3 employees and makes about USD 300.00 from her a trade monthly and hopes to grow her business internationally.
ASIGE Basketry project plays an important role in the development of rural Ghana especially women and girls. With just straw from elephant grass ASIGE transforms them into innovative and modern stylish products that are capable of replacing everything that rubbers are being used for in the home and outdoor events. ASIGE unique baskets comes in various shapes that are for fruits trays, laundry bags, flower vase, hand bags in various shapes, beach baskets and bags, market baskets in various dimensions, Shopping Malls baskets, home and event decorations, home storage, launch box, laptop bags and several uses. The miracle baskets of ASIGE currently employ 429 women in Bolgatanga, Ghana which they earn income to support their families. The income levels of these women moved from 0.25USD per day to 2 USD per day in 2022. The baskets are becoming global products as they are exported to the UK, USA, Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Japan and several countries. These baskets deliver sustainable skills training to rural women including persons with disabilities as well as linking rural women to commercial banking. Countless number of the women was taken from the street hawking and is now employed through these miracle baskets. A purchase of the miracle baskets is an investment that will contribute to the achievement of the 6 of the SDGs that is 1,2,3,4,5 and 12

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH EDUCATION

The success of any country depends on the holistic education that the citizens get. The totality of education equips the youth for the future. In Ghana, comprehensive sexuality education is not taught in schools and that the reason ASIGE took the mantle to engage in sexual reproductive health education in rural girls in Upper East and West Regions and will continue to expand. ASIGE continue to identify and send back to school girls that have dropped out due to teenage pregnancy or poverty. Since 2018, we have impacted the lives of over 10,000 boys and girls through mentorship, reproductive health education

REUSABLE SANITARY PAD CENTER

Great is the future of women and girls in Upper East Region if only our girls stay in school to learn. After our research, we realized that some girls stay away from school because of Sanitary pads while others travel to the south (Kumasi and Accra) to do street hawking. The future of our women should not be messed up because of this simple but necessary natural issue. It’s been our vision to liberate these young girls from the pains of the month.

In 2018, ASIGE went through comprehensive training and certification from Days for Girls Ghana and New York Unadilla and equipment support from Americans Serving Abroad Project to establish and reusable sanitary pad center. ASIGE is gold certified to provide reusable sanitary pad locally and internationally. In a matter of 5 years 5000 reusable sanitary pads are produce for rural girl in Ghana and 10,000 boys and girls are covered.

Our History

In 2013, when Dorcas Apoore completed Senior High school with excellent WASSCE results but could not proceed to the University because of poverty. It was then that CAMFED Ghana gave her complete scholarship to University for Development Studies to study Planning. CAMFED change makers congress reignited the passion for community service in 2014 and birth of Advocacy for Social Inclusion and Girls Education was born as a give back to society. We were fully registered in 2016 as a charitable organization in Ghana. As part of the University’s Third trimester Field Practical Program (TTFPP), Dorcas was posted to Sumbrungu for 2 months in 2015 where she undertook a community data gathering with her colleagues and several [problems were identified including Streetism, rural urban migration, poverty and low level of girl’s education. Dorcas shared her school research with her team and the team began to develop means by which to utilize local resources in the community to reduce poverty and generate income for the women. The ASIGE baskets project took centered stage and began in February, 2017 with a funding of 500USD from The Pollination Project in the United States.

Our Growth

Since poverty reduction is our number one priority, ASIGE is developing the youth of Upper East through sustainable skills

We are delivering many successful projects by way of Vocational Skills training program where we have enrolled and fully funded the training of teenage mothers, drop pouts and young people in vocations such as welding, tailoring, Hair dressing, Textile Weaving and others.

Secondly ASIGE women baskets center is a sustainable income generation activity that gathers women, train them and they work together to create synergy in developing environmentally friendly products for the world. Over 400 women are part of this project with the Head office being at Sumbrungu where our research took place. These baskets are now a global product servicing customer in The United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Australia, and Japan, Turkey, Mexico and Ghana. Majority of the weavers were once street hawkers and the power of ASIGE’s innovative project has taken them off the street and given them incomes well above 1.5USD a day.

Thirdly, we are running various projects that are focused sexual reproductive health education and services to adolescence boys and girls in Northern Ghana. ASIGE has established a reusable Sanitary Pad Center in partnership with Days for Girls Ghana and Days for Girls International. We provide comprehensive services in terms education, mentorship and reusable sanitary pads to girls in Upper East Region and beyond

Cooperation

As a Social Enterprise we understand and feel the pain that women and young girls go through in providing for themselves and the family. At ASIGE we value the open collaboration between board members, volunteers (local and International), and students, as well as individuals and organizations from the communities that we work in. In addition, we would not be able to run our projects without the cooperation of other key supportive partners in development practice especially in the UK and USA. They actually make it happen!

Women Economic Empowerment

The pillar of every economic dominated my women is women economic empowerment that centers on skills development, income generation, employment creation. It led to a multitude of holistic changes in the development of society. ASIGE baskets project got launched in 2017 to basically take women out of the streets and provide income opportunities. We aspire to a new model of ethical business that sees all of us as partners in an unfolding global transformation.

Our baskets are hand woven in Ghana by women artisans in Sumbrungu in Bolgatanga Ghana. These baskets are the beautiful form of artistic creation and are usable in a wide range of activities. The come in various. Styles, colors and sizes. Choose from a selection of shopping, baskets laundry baskets, cat homes, round baskets, home decor, lampshade and our twenty varieties. Our weavers are paid well for their artful work and received insurance cover.