Unfinished projects

AGERTO would like to offer its apprentices a warm lunch on a daily basis. 

The current financial situation allows us to provide a meal, that is cooked by the apprentices themselves, three times a week. Usually, there is rice, beans or "pâte" (cornmeal mush), since these are not only the staple foods in Togo, but also some of the the cheapest ingredients. 

Given the situation that we currently do not dispose of the necessary financial means, the apprentices have to take care of their food otherwise on the two other days. 

Most of our apprentices do not have enough money to buy themselves something to eat for lunch, so they stay hungry. This does not only have bad consequences for their focus, but also for the quality of their training. That is way we keep looking for possibilities to secure funding for this project. We are thankful for any kind of help.

A lot of well-trained teachers leave AGERTO due to the insufficient payment. Considering the monthly wage they receive, their work in our centre could almost be called a voluntary service. Most of the teachers have a family and possibly parents they need to take care of. 

Given the monthly wage they receive, not even self-sufficiency is possible to them. In other workshops of training centres or even as a self-employed person, they would earn more money. We already receive regular donations to pay the current monthly wages, but they are simply not enough to pay our total of 27 teachers the minimum wage set by the government to 35.000 FCFA (about 50€). 

In Togo, power cuts are nothing unusual. Often, they last several hours and no work can be done. These power outages have negative consequences for all domains.

We at AGERTO are aiming at a sustainable and eco-friendly solution for this energy problem. That is why we would like to install solar equipments in our centres any time soon. Our main obstacle are the quite high costs, since the purchase is not subsidized by the Togolese government. 

Three times a week, occasionally also for special events, lunch meals are cooked in our kitchen. Currently, it only consists of a tin roof and a fireplace that is very energy-inefficient. 

Not only to cook more easily, but also to save more heating fuel, we would like to build a new, enclosed kitchen building.

AGERTO accepts a lot of young women, who already have small children, for an apprenticeship. Furthermore, there are also teachers who have toddlers and young children at home. Multiple children stay in our training centre during working hours, since noone is at home to watch them. 

To facilitate the working process for the families and young mothers and create a focused learning atmosphere, we aim at creatig a day-nursery for these children. There, they could be watched and taken care of during training and working hours.