The Ghana Hairdressers and Beauticians Association (GHABA) has appealed to members of the public to stop referring to hairdressers, beauticians, and other skilled workers as illiterates or school dropouts.
According to the leadership of the association, such labels are inaccurate and unfair, as they do not reflect the educational background and capabilities of many people engaged in these trades.
The Upper East Regional President of GHABA, Rebecca Goloo, described the name-calling as unacceptable, stressing that choosing a trade such as hairdressing is a matter of personal choice and talent, not a sign of academic failure.
She explained that many members of the association have completed senior high school, while others are graduates of tertiary institutions, making it wrong to assume that vocational and technical trades are meant only for people who did not go to school.
Speaking to journalists over the weekend at the graduation ceremony of 39 apprentices, Madam Goloo urged the public to respect skilled workers and refrain from using derogatory terms to describe them.
“I hate to hear people say that we are school drop outs or we are illiterates that is why we chose to do hand work. It is not like that. All of us came with our talent and this is our talent that we came from heaven with and we chose this work. So, we don’t want to see us as school drop outs. I am an SHS graduate, many of my colleagues are SHS graduates and we have university graduates so we are not illiterates,” she stressed.
