​​​​​​​EMPOWERED TO RISE: The thrilling story of Madam Patricia Owula

International Women’s Day celebrates women's social, cultural, and economic achievements globally.

In rural Ghana, women's role in their communities cannot be overemphasized. In farming communities, they produce up to 70% of foodstuffs. But despite this, they remain vulnerable and receive only 30% of the support needed. Closing this disparity and leveling the playing field for women is not only merely fair but also essential for the continent's future.

This year, I celebrate this special day in Ghana with an extraordinary woman who volunteers for Easy Water for Everyone. She is a brave woman who works assiduously, sometimes checkered by adversity, to ensure the constant flow of clean water in her community and also build a better future for her family.

Meet Madam Patricia Owula, one of the few women volunteers in the Ada East District of the Greater Accra region. For years, she has taken oversight responsibility over the maintenance of the organization’s ground-breaking water filtration device at Kewuse as a backwasher. She cleans the system three times every day even though she lost her livelihood to the recent devastating floods occasioned by the spillage of the Akosombo Dam.

Patricia reveals that after losing everything to the floods, her only consolation has been in the production of liquid soap. Before volunteering for Easy Water for Everyone, she was unemployed and struggled to secure a decent job. With no other way to supplement her husband’s meager income from fishing, she frequently had to beg for money from friends and family. On bad days, the entire family went to bed on empty stomachs.

With support from donors, Easy Water for Everyone paid for Patricia to undergo a practical training course in soap making, parazone, and so on. The free skills training programme was the organization’s initiative to empower vulnerable women in beneficiary communities to earn income to support their families.

Today, Patricia supplies liquid soap to some of the island schools in the district. The income she makes from the sale of the soap is what sustains the family. Patricia regrets that the life she has today is not one she could afford for her children before this intervention.

Like Patricia, many women in Ghana face barriers to accessing education, training, and employment. For women without basic education, these barriers are even greater. This is more pervasive in rural areas. Indeed, women make up a disproportionate share of Africa’s vulnerable groups, and many are without employable skills.

Everything changed for Patricia and her family after the training course. She was able to cater for the educational needs of her children.

The campaign theme for the International Women's Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion. Indeed, when we inspire others to understand, empower, and value women like Patricia, we inspire a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment.

Easy Water for Everyone is a non-governmental, non-profit organization with operations in Ghana, Senegal, and Uganda. The organization delivers clean water to last-mile communities with contaminated water sources, using simple sustainable technology that does not require electricity, validated by research.

Written by:
Benjamin Osei Boateng
[email protected]