Category Archives: Bissau Campus

Block by block: Walls go up on the new WAVS training center

After pouring more than 10,000 cubic feet of reinforced concrete, the foundation is done! Now it’s time to call in the block masons. For the last several months, our contractor has been excavating, constructing concrete footings and foundation beams, laying down pipes and electrical installations, and pouring slab. Now, the new training center is finally […]

Construction progress update: Laying the foundation of the new Training Center

Earlier this year, we broke ground on a brand-new 16,000-square-foot Training Center at our flagship campus in the capital of Guinea-Bissau. It’s scheduled to be completed by early next year. The Training Center will allow us to expand our welding program and launch new programs in carpentry and metalwork machining – skills that are in […]

To finish university, Rukas first needs to become a welder

Rukas Welding Student in West Africa

I’ve had the privilege of getting to know many of our welding students since moving to Guinea-Bissau earlier this year. One thing I have discovered is that many of those students have already studied at other schools or universities in the past. But in a country with few salaried jobs available, their education hasn’t been enough […]

How computer skills can help people in West Africa

Iano and Alassana spend their morning in computer literacy classes at a WAVS vocational school in West Africa. After their class, they both walk down the street to a local high school. They travel there for different purposes: one to attend and the other to teach. But they both need to learn how to use […]

The behind-the-scenes story of how we opened the Bissau campus

We all know it takes three things to start a fire: heat, fuel and oxygen. It also takes three things to turn a dream into reality: faith, a great team, and people like yourself who invest in the vision early on. Just like a fire, if you don’t have all three, you’re left with nothing. […]

The new WAVS campus takes another leap forward

A grand from the Japanese embassy in Dakar is helping build the new WAVS campus to equip young people in Guinea-Bissau with job skills.

An American nonprofit. A government ministry in a tiny country in West Africa. A grant funded by the government of Japan. All of these organizations came together last month to make something special happen: Launch a new vocational school campus that will equip hundreds of young women and men with life-changing job skills. On February […]