📞 USA (215) 253-7658 | Ghana 020 9970 207
📞 USA (215) 253-7658 | Ghana 020 9970 207
We train young people ages 12 to 25 in Sunyani and the Bono/Ahafo Region, building practical and digital skills that help them move into jobs, start small businesses, or continue their education.
This is the story behind the numbers. ThriveWorks Ghana started because too many young people in Sunyani were left with nothing to do and nowhere to turn, and that kind of idle time can push someone toward alcohol, drugs, or despair. So we built something else: real training, real mentors, and a place to belong. Since 2022, that has grown into a program that's changed how 142 young people see their own future. Here's what that actually looks like, in their numbers and ours.
Cumulative total, all programme tracks combined, 2022 to present, from our internal programme records.
When a young person walks through our doors, the first real choice they make is which trade to learn. Tap any of these to see what that path actually looks like.
The world seems to be racing ahead with computers and AI, but the International Telecommunication Union reports that only 38% of people in Africa were online in 2024, and in rural areas like ours that number falls to just 23%, the widest urban-rural digital gap anywhere in the world. For some of our beneficiaries, the challenge was never keeping up with artificial intelligence. It was getting a first real chance to open a laptop, write an email, or use Word and Excel: the basics much of the world takes for granted. As AI reshapes who gets hired, we've watched young people risk being left behind before they ever got the chance to learn the fundamentals needed to compete at all. Our Digital Skills program meets every beneficiary where they are, teaching someone their very first keystroke, or helping someone who already knows the basics grow into the tools now reshaping their field. The World Bank projects that Sub-Saharan Africa will need 230 million digitally skilled workers by 2030, a $130 billion opportunity, and we're training our beneficiaries to be ready for it.
This is our biggest track, and it isn't just typing lessons. We keep updating it so our apprentices leave knowing tools that are actually useful right now, not what was useful five years ago.
Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The everyday tools behind office and admin work all over Ghana.
Graphic design with Canva and Photoshop, building a portfolio our apprentices can use to freelance or land a design job.
Hands-on practice with AI tools for sound and video editing and generation, so an idea can become finished work much faster.
A first taste of AI-assisted software development using tools like VS Code and Cursor. Apprentices build real, working software with AI as their coding partner.
Typing, internet research, email, and staying safe online. The basics that everything else here is built on.
We change this curriculum as the job market changes, so an apprentice who joins next year learns different tools than one who joined last year, on purpose.
Learning a trade well takes time, especially through an apprenticeship. That's why our tracks run up to 3 years, with mentors staying close the whole way so character and discipline grow right alongside the technical skill.
We hand apprentices the actual tools and materials their trade needs, not just lessons about them.
Our mentors stay involved well after graduation. Those relationships are a big part of why growth lasts.
We check in at 3, 6, and 12 months after graduation to see how someone's doing: employed, earning, still in business. That's how we know what's really working.
If an apprentice already has a business idea, we help make it real with training, startup funds, and resources to keep it going.
It started as an idea. We spent this time understanding what the community actually needed and building partnerships, including UrbanPromise International, who became our fiscal sponsor.
Incorporated ThriveWorks as an NGO in Ghana. Piloted and refined the program.
Program review and expansion to new sectors, doubling the number of youth served.
Focused on securing funding for our training facility, expanding partnerships, strengthening staff, and increasing youth served through improved systems.
Our full track record, plus what's flowing in live from our new program management system.
From our internal enrollment records, all tracks combined.
16 computers in our own training suite in Abesim, purchased June 2024. Delivery has run in house since.
Of the graduates who consent to stay in touch with us, about 85% are continuing their education or putting their skills to work, whether that's earning an income or using them in their own life. The rest are still finding their footing. This is informal follow-up, not yet a systematic survey of every graduate. Our new beneficiary management system, together with our ongoing registration with Ghana's Data Protection Commission, will let us track this properly and publish fully verified numbers here.
Loading our latest updates…
We post day-to-day moments from our programs on social media more often than we update this site, so that's where to go for the latest.
Donors, sponsors, and grantmakers ask the same questions before they commit: what does the money actually build, and does the program actually work. Here's where we stand on both.
A 16-machine computer suite in Abesim, purchased June 2024. Digital skills training has run in house ever since.
About 85% of graduates who stay in touch with us are continuing their education or putting their skills to work. We're building the system to track this formally and report it with full rigour.
We stay involved well past graduation with tools, mentorship, and monitoring, not a one-time training session.
Every figure on this page, our track record and our live data, is published openly so you can verify it yourself.
Put together, that's our own facility, durable multi-year support, and a willingness to say plainly what we can and can't yet prove. We'd rather you judge us on that than on anything we say about ourselves.
Every number above is a young person in Sunyani who decided to bet on their own future, plus the donors, mentors, and partners who backed that bet. Your support is how we reach more youth, open more tracks, and help more of these stories last.
One-time or monthly, and tax-deductible in the US through our fiscal sponsor, Urban Promise International.