Erudite Women’s Empowerment Foundation (EWEF), an NGO, last Friday celebrated this year’s International Day of the Girl-Child to again remind the world of the need for Girls and Young Women’s inclusion in leadership and decision making.
The theme for this year’s celebration was: “Girls’ Vision For The Future” and was organised to empower Senior High School Girls from the Agogo State College and Collins Senior High School at the Assembly Hall of the Agogo State College in the Asante Akim North district of Ashanti region.
Ms. Tanya Morgan Dixon, a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the largest health movement in America for black women, called the GirlTrek USA, in a keynote address encouraged the girls and young women to begin to think of great things and most importantly talk about those things to trusted friends about what their dreams are for the future.
She stressed that “you got to be crystal clear about it and do not let anybody turn you around about what you want to be”.
Ms. Morgan, who was named among the top 1 percent of the world’s social innovators and is currently a social innovator at Harvard Kennedy School, admonished the girls to think of what they want to do in future to help or serve their society and at the same time become helpful and happy.
She said she was motivated by Dr. Wangari Maathai of Kenya, who was the first African Woman to get a PhD and the first African Woman to win the International Nobel Peace Prize for mobilising the Green Belt Women group to plant 50 million trees in Kenya, at the time the country was on the verge of environmental devastation.
Mrs. Ohenewaa Constance Ankoma, the Executive Director of EWEF, explained that the purpose of organising the International Day of the Girl-Child was to teach them how to lead, plan and to be involved in decision making process, with the expectation that a lot of young women would be taking leadership roles in the nearest future and do well economically for themselves.
She said EWEF’s programmes, which are based on advocating for girls’ leadership under the “She Leads” project, have realised one key issue, which is self-confidence because the young girls and women already have the ability, but lack the confidence to show forth whatever talents they possessed, which is identified as a major challenge.
Mrs. Constance Ankoma said EWEF has partnered with stakeholders to implement informed services that have impacted the lives of over 5,000 girls and young women in the Asante Akim area, focusing on adolescent girls’ sexual and reproductive health particularly menstrual hygiene management, girls and young women’s leadership and inclusion in decision making processes, mentorship and economic empowerment.
From Thomas Agbenyegah Adzey, Agogo
