GRIDCo Ladies commemorate International Women’s Day

The GRIDCo Ladies Association (GRIDLASS) has commemorated this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) with a call on women to incorporate technology in their works and activities.

Ms. Azara Amadu, GRIDCo Ladies President said women need to be celebrated for their contributions to the social, economic, and political development of the country and the world as a whole.

Ms. Amadu said at GRIDCo women make an effort to interpret technology and innovation in the discharge of their work and encouraged other to add technological value to themselves.

Nana Yaa Obenewaa Okudzeto, Director and Principal Engineer at Built Services Consult, speaking on the theme said without the incorporation of technology and innovation, women would become stagnant and kicked out of what they were currently doing.

Ms. Okudzeto said women needed to take up the responsibilities that make them important, adding that they could only do this when they take technology seriously and improve themselves for the gig economy.

She noted that knowledge in the gig economy would make them more marketable, allows for flexibility, get innovative, and have financial benefits while improving upon their skill set with technology.

She said it was about time that women shove off the imposter syndrome which makes them feel inadequate, stressing that women have the innateness in them to create and make things happen and therefore should stop playing it small as they are enough on their own.

She called for policies that would ensure equity for women and children instead of equality, as they have particular issues that resources must be consciously allocated, emphasizing that the lip service paid to women’s issues every year during the celebration of IWD must be replaced with practical achievable plans.

The Electrical Engineer said accessibility, affordability of data for women, education-related issues, and cultural norms were some of the things preventing women from reaching their full potential and embracing technology and innovation.

She revealed that even though currently there were a number of women graduating from universities in the technical and engineering fields, most of them have to divert to banking and other work due to the unlevelled ground created in the field of work.

Mr. Mark Baah, GRIDCo’s Southern Sector Director, said the number of women staff in the company has gone up from the initial 23 which formed three percent of the total workforce when the company started operation in 2008 to currently over 160 representing 19 percent of the staff.

Mr. Baah commended the women for demonstrating mastery in managing their homes and succeeding in their chosen fields of work.

There were solidarity messages from the Volta River Authority Ladies, GRIDCo Board of Directors, GRIDCo Union, and the Electricity Company of Ghana’s Power Ladies.

The celebration was used to award Madam Nicolina Nkang-Ma Yembila, Director Procurement, GRIDCo as its maiden ‘Shero’ for her numerous contributions and success achieved in the Company.

Members of the Association used the day to wine and dine in Tema and encourage each other to contribute their quota to the success of the grid company while patting themselves on the back for their resilience over the years.

IWD is celebrated globally annually to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, as well as to focus greater attention on women’s rights.

The 2023 United Nations theme for the celebration is “DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality,” with a hush tag #EmbraceEquity.

—CDA Consult || Contributor