ThriveWorks Ghana
ThriveWorks Ghana is an NGO based in Sunyani, Bono Region, serving youth across the Bono and
Ahafo host communities. We work with young people ages 12 to 25 who are facing the same hard
problem: few stable jobs and few affordable ways to learn a trade. Our response is hands-on
apprenticeship and mentorship training, plus basic entrepreneurship education, so graduates can
find local employment, start a small business, or continue their education.
The clearest evidence of the problem is local. In Sunyani Municipal, unemployment (relaxed
definition, which doesn't require active job seeking) runs 47.1% among 15 to 19 year olds and
36.2% among 20 to 24 year olds, against 22.3% at 25 to 29 and 13.7% at 30 to 34. Among that
same 15 to 19 group, 80.8% had used a mobile phone, but only 8.1% a laptop and 0.9% a desktop
computer; 18.7% had used no functional digital device at all. Laptop use rises to 31.1% among
20 to 24 year olds, the age at which those who continue into tertiary education typically get
one. Sunyani Municipal had 41,385 residents aged 15 to 24 at the time of the census.
The gap is not connectivity. It's the machine. Young people here have phones.
What they lack is the keyboard, the file system, and the software employers assume everyone
already knows, and that access mostly opens only for those who continue their education. For
those who stop after junior or senior high school, it often never opens at all.
Source: Ghana Statistical Service, 2021 Population and Housing Census, Sunyani
Municipal. Unemployment figures use the relaxed definition, which does not require active job
seeking.
That local gap sits inside a much larger one. The International Telecommunication Union found
that only 38% of people in Africa were online in 2024, just 23% in rural areas like ours, the
widest urban-rural digital gap anywhere in the world. For some of our beneficiaries, the real
challenge was never keeping up with AI. It was getting a first chance to open a laptop or
write an email, skills much of the world takes for granted. We meet every beneficiary where
they are, from a first keystroke to the AI tools now reshaping their field, because the World
Bank projects Sub-Saharan Africa will need 230 million digitally skilled workers by 2030, and
we want our beneficiaries ready for it.
Sources: International Telecommunication Union, Measuring Digital Development: Facts
and Figures 2024; World Bank, cited in the World Economic Forum's
Future of Jobs Report 2025.
Our Programs
Four paths, one goal: give a young person in Sunyani a real shot at steady work. Work brings dignity
and the ability to support a family, so alongside the technical training, we help beneficiaries build
the character and integrity that carries into their whole life, not just their trade.
We took premises in Abesim in February 2024 and bought a sixteen-machine computer training suite in
June 2024, so Digital Skills training now runs in house on our own equipment. We still partner with
local churches and communities for recruitment and community engagement, places young people already
know and trust, but training itself happens at our own facility. Everyone is welcome, whatever their
background or belief.
Model
Two models, matched to the track. Trade Skills runs on partnership: we build relationships with
skilled trainers, set clear expectations with each apprentice, then fund and monitor the training
until it sticks. Digital Skills runs differently: it's delivered by our own trainers, on our own
equipment, at our facility in Abesim. Either way, if a track isn't producing real outcomes, we
change it.
