Unpaid care work is essential for families and communities but is often undervalued and can negatively impact women and adolescent girls in terms of their education, health, participation in public life, and economic status. UCARE is a five-year project being implemented in 10 districts across the Northern, Northeast, and Savannah Regions of Ghana, funded by the Government of Canada.

The project is led by Alinea International in partnership with SEND Ghana, NETRIGHT, local Women's Rights Organizations including Youth Alive, and government institutions including the Ghana Statistical Service and the National Development Planning Commission.

Ultimate Outcome: Enhanced realization of women and adolescent girls' rights to equal distribution of domestic work and reduced burden of unpaid care work in Northern Ghana.

Implementation Approach: The Gender Model Family (GMF) approach will be carried out in three key ways:

Equitable Sharing: Promoting equitable sharing of unpaid care work among all household members (fathers, mothers, sons, daughters)
Norm Change: Advocating for the elimination of traditional norms and practices inimical to women and girls' empowerment
Institutional Capacity: Building capacity of Metropolitan, Municipal, District Assemblies (MMDAs) to adopt gender-responsive planning and budgeting strategies
Achievements By Youth Alive (Northeast Region):

Successfully sensitized over 17,000 men, women, boys and girls in 135 communities across three districts on unpaid care work and time poverty
Recruited and registered over 5,000 families as Gender Model Families to serve as models and advocates for equitable households
Trained over 15,000 individuals as GMFs on unpaid care work, time poverty, and equitable redistribution of household chores and resources
Successfully organized community engagements with traditional authorities, community influencers, and GMFs on mitigation strategies
When women and adolescent girls are free of time poverty, it creates an environment for them to maximize participation in education, employment, health, businesses, politics, and leisure activities.

The Women Economic Empowerment-North (WEE-North) project, developed by Alinea Foundation with funding from Global Affairs Canada, aims to introduce a critical mass of 2,000 young women aged 18-35 to typically male-dominated trades so they can participate in well-paying, decent work in construction and other industries.

Many young women in Northern Ghana come from communities where a culture of unpaid care and domestic work is imposed on women, rendering them unable to join the labour force and depriving them of financial independence. Youth Alive was contracted as a service provider in the Upper East Region to deliver this transformative program.

Accomplishments: Youth Alive has equipped 373 vulnerable young women from underprivileged communities with technical training in male-oriented trades and life skills including:

Brick laying and construction
Tiling and finish work
Plumbing and electrical works
Wood works and carpentry
Empowerment Sessions: Trainees receive comprehensive training on:

Gender awareness and rights
Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights
Leadership skills and self-confidence
Business skills and entrepreneurship
Professional counselors provide ongoing support to help trainees build confidence, be assertive, develop communication skills, and master entrepreneurial capabilities needed in the business world.

Special Initiative - Mabiligu Cohort (2024): Youth Alive was again contracted to work with a special group of girls previously working as "kayaye" (porters) in southern Ghana. These vulnerable girls are accommodated on the St. Mary's Technical Institute campus where they receive both industrial skills training and comprehensive empowerment sessions to restore their dignity and self-esteem.

Access to finance has been identified as a dominant constraint facing Micro, Medium and Small-Scale Enterprises (MSMEs). A World Bank study found that about 90% of small enterprises surveyed stated that credit was a major constraint to new investment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most businesses in Ghana suffered significantly due to social and economic impacts, causing them to operate at a very slow pace or even shut down.

The Baobab Initiative for Social Accountability (BISA) is a coalition project of Youth Alive, CALID, and GDCA under the STAR Ghana Foundation Partnership Beyond Aid program. The project was designed to assess the impact of government support to MSMEs and evaluate the effectiveness of government's relief initiatives from the perspective of beneficiaries.

Government Relief Programs Assessed:

CAP-BuSS: GH¢600 million scheme launched in May 2020 to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises
Ghana CARES: GH¢100 billion Covid-19 Ghana CARES programme to mitigate pandemic impact on livelihoods
Implemented across seven districts in the Northern, Savanna, and Northeast regions, BISA conducted comprehensive social accountability assessments to provide critical feedback for policy improvement.

Project Activities:

Project launch and stakeholder engagement
District level sensitizations on social accountability
Town hall meetings with business owners and government officials
Score card events where business owners rated the effectiveness of support programs
Radio discussions to share findings and recommendations

Ghana has committed to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for all, leaving no one behind, in line with national commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals. However, current interventions are not adequately responsive to the healthcare needs of women and girls or sensitive to the socio-cultural circumstances affecting their access to and utilization of services.

The National Health Policy envisions holistic, comprehensive, equitable, affordable and responsive health services. To achieve this, women's active participation as informed clients, rights-holders, co-creators and agents of change must be ensured at all levels – from the family and community to sub-national and national government levels.

This project strengthens the Primary Health Care (PHC) system using a gendered approach by adapting SEND's Gender Model Family (GMF) approach. The GMF is a gender-transformative community mobilization strategy addressing unequal power relations between women and men by promoting equitable redistribution of unpaid and domestic care work among all household members.

Four Priority Areas:

Policy Development: Developing and adopting gender-equitable, socially inclusive standards and guidelines in all PHC-related policy, programme, and strategy actions
Service Provider Capacity: Investing in capacities of service providers to deliver gender-equitable, vulnerability-sensitive, and rights-oriented essential services
Accountability Mechanisms: Strengthening gender-responsive mechanisms for accountability and feedback to increase clients' options for demanding improved services
Women's Agency: Increasing agency and participation of women and girls in PHC decision-making at national, district, community, and family levels
Project Activities:

Regional and district level project inception meetings
Community sensitization on the project, unpaid care work and time poverty and their relation to PHC
Recruitment and training of Gender Model Families
Survey on PHC service providers
Community education on the patients' rights charter
Identification and discussion of advocacy issues on PHC with district health directorates
Achievements So Far:

Over 1,100 people in ten communities across two districts directly sensitized on the project and Gender Model Family intervention
100 families across ten communities volunteered to be Gender Model Families, successfully reducing household burden on 122 women
Community members sensitized on feedback mechanisms, patients' rights, and responsibilities of service providers
Over 2,300 individuals across 10 communities educated on primary healthcare covering four key modules: Socio-Cultural Barriers, Patient's Rights Charter, Health Service Packages, and Feedback Mechanisms
Vision: Women and girls will have guaranteed access to quality healthcare based on their needs, irrespective of their age, education, location, ability, ethnic and religious backgrounds.