UCOMS SIFE To Support Artisans

The University College of Management Studies (UCOMS) Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) has embarked on a project that seeks to enhance the business of artisans at the Arts Centre in Accra.

Known as the Business Enhancement Project, the initiative aims to assist the artisans to improve upon their businesses.

“We will be training and equiping them with business skills,” the Faculty Adviser of UCOMS SIFE, Deborah Adu-Twumwaah, told the graphic.com.gh.

She explained that members of the team would expose the artisans to the international market by linking them with SIFE teams in other countries.

“We will buy some of their products and send them to SIFE teams in other countries to get market for them,” she said.

Ms Adu-Twumwaah said SIFE UCOMS would also create a website for the artisans to advertise their products online.

Meanwhile. she said a seminar had been scheduled for them, to be attended by personnel from the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, who would give talks on investment opportunities in and outside the country.

UCOMS SIFE emerged winner of the 2011 Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition involving 18 public and private tertiary institutions in the country; that qualified the university to participate in the 2011 SIFE ‘World Cup’ in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October last year.

Thirty-seven universities from 44 countries participated in the event.

Three presentations; the Ghana Students Initiative Programme (GSIP), Tomefa Development Programme and My Health, My Wealth, made by the UCOMS SIFE team, emerged tops.

The achievement by the UCOMS SIFE team was the second in a row, having won the 2010 edition which was its first participation.

Following its victory, the UCOMS SIFE team participated in the 2010 SIFE ‘World Cup’ in Los Angeles in the United States, where it got to the semi final stage.

Other tertiary institutions that competed in the 2011 national SIFE competition included the University of Ghana, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the Catholic University College, Accra Polytechnic and the Ho Polytechnic.

SIFE is a non-profit organisation that seeks to improve the quality of life and standards of living around the world by teaching the principles and values of free market economics.

Working in partnership with hundreds of tertiary institutions and businesses, SIFE organises, motivates and trains tertiary students to form SIFE teams which design, develop and implement community-based micro-businesses, training and educational projects.