DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
Mission Statement:
To achieve an honest transformation of life, living conditions and environment of people within the territory of the Archdiocese of Cape Coast (Central Region of Ghana) and bring them closer to God.
Vision:
To promote the well being of the poor and disadvantaged groups within the Central Region of Ghana through community empowerment, entrepreneurship development and investments.
Core Values:
Core Values that will guide the activities of the Development Office include:
Respect for human dignity
Beneficiary Ownership of Programmes/ Projects
Responsibility
Truth and Justice
Transparency and Accountability
Dialogue and Collaboration
Honesty
Promotion of sound Christian values
Objectives
To decentralize social and economic development activities to the parish and community levels by empowering them with skills and information, and to facilitate access to and utilization of resources to enable them become more self-reliant, and take ownership of their development.
To restructure groups within the church in the parishes to use their collective strength or advantage to improve their economic circumstances through self-help projects. This would include strengthening them to build on the trust they have in each other as a result of religious affinity to improve their living conditions.
To re-organize and strengthen Credit Unions in the parishes and at the diocesan level to provide financial resources for individual and group activities as a first option.
To develop the capacity of groups to be able to develop competitive project proposals to compete for resources available for development locally, nationally and internationally, and to tap into expertise, relevant technologies and resources of institutions, donors and development organizations. Strong partnerships will be developed with Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), agricultural research institutes and technology development organizations within Ghana and from the international community such as Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), Hands-On and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
To build reliable safety nets and support systems for disadvantaged groups and persons living with disabilities, and introduce mechanisms to bounce the economically active ones back into the mainstream of gainful employment.
To develop and sustain a strong entrepreneurial culture in groups and individuals within the Archdiocese to raise incomes and improve economic circumstances of the faithful, and invariably the church.
To initiate and support market-oriented economic activities to create employment, improve incomes of groups, individuals and the Archdiocese as a whole.
Targets
Our strategic plan should achieve the following:
• 1000 viable socio-economic projects developed, with at least 3 in every Parish or Rectory (41 Parishes/Rectories in all)
• 2500 youth trained in Leadership Skills, with at least 10 from each of Parish/Rectory each year
• 500 people trained in Project Development Skills
• 2500 people trained in Entrepreneurship Skills
• 2500 enterprises created (at least 1 enterprise by each trained person)
• 5000 new jobs created (at least, 2 jobs by each enterprise)
• At least 30 well-established Credit Unions in Parishes/Rectories
Programmes for the next five years
# Activity Target groups
1 Leadership Development For groups in parishes
2 Project Development Skills For groups in parishes
3 Entrepreneurship Development Especially for the youth
4 Market-oriented Initiatives For parishes, groups and individuals
5 Social and Health Support Programmes For the aged and disadvantaged groups
6 Skill Training Programmes (ICT and Vocational Skills) Especially for persons with disabilities and the youth
CONTACT DETAILS
socio-economic@archcapeghana.org