Girl-Child Education Project Launched

A project to raise funds to support needy but brilliant girl-children through Senior High School (SHS) education was launched over the weekend at the British Council Hall in Accra.

A total of GH¢3,000 seed money had already been committed to kick-start this worthy cause by the Managing Director of Sub-Saharan Publishers, Akos Ofori-Mensah and Mr. Frank Segbawu of Sedco Publishers.

The fund would be in the Girl-Child Unit of the Ghana Education Service's account.

In his keynote address, the Danish Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Flemming Bjork Pedersen, noted that the project formed part of the campaign to promote the third Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which was adopted by the United Nations in 2000, code-named 'MDG3 Champion Torch Campaign'.

He emphasized that supporting the girl-child via education would lead to further empowerment of tomorrow's woman, adding, “She will be able to contribute better in the work life and her understanding of other issues will also be deeper and her participation in society better”.

Ambassador Flemming indicated that without education, a woman could not better utilize her rights and opportunities, citing instances as voting rights, employment opportunities, and economic influence among others.

“We must also remember that a young woman with an education is likely to have fewer and healthier children,” noting that a better access to education for girls would have direct impact on child welfare and development in the next generation.

He outlined mixed tradition, poverty and expectations which translated into discrimination and disempowerment of girls alongside women, as barriers inhibiting girls' further advancement in education.

Mr. Flemming noted that all beliefs as well as traditions, which were rooted in discrimination, should be challenged and the contribution of women in society recognized.

“The rights of the convention to equality,

non-discrimination and protection is the basis for focusing on improving particularly girls' access to quality education and prioritizing secondary education for girls as a vital investment,” he added.

Madam Akos Ofori-Mensah of the Sub-Saharan Publishers group, who coined the theme 'Empower the Girl-Child Project: 2008 Scholarship Scheme' also added her voice, saying, particulars of the selected girls would be given to the consultants so they could pay visits to their various schools whenever possible while the Girl-Education Unit would monitor the progress of these young ones with special assistance from their district and regional officers.

She however appealed to lady parliamentarians, ministers, medical personnel, legal personnel, teachers, bankers and all stakeholders in education to help educate “our girl-children well,” noting that the greatest resource Ghana has is neither gold nor diamond or any other commodity but her children.

The Director General of the Ghana Education Service, Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, who chaired the function, underlined the importance of education in every society, and indicated that global poverty could not be reduced unless children, especially the girl-child, had equal access to quality education.

The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Chamber of Mines, Madam Joyce Aryee, urged women to continue to be role models for young girls.

She was not happy that in spite of the many programmes aimed at empowering women, most of them still could not make it to the top of the educational ladder, maintaining that “the time to have a total paradigm shift is now”.

She cautioned parents against overburdening their children with domestic chores, stressing that they should rather encourage them to learn.

By Frank Muzzu