---

International Women’s Day in Ghana

Womankind’s partners in Ghana have been busy spearheading events and campaigns across the country to celebrate 100 years of International Women’s Day (IWD).

Women in Politics

In Accra, our partner WiLDAF released a press statement urging the Government of Ghana and the main political parties to commit to affirmative action policies, to address the very low number of women in politics.

- only 8.3% of MPs are women, and

- in the 2010 local council elections only 412 women were elected out of a total of 6,093 seats available.

The article also used the opportunity to celebrate IWD by highlighting prominent Ghanaian women in politics, business and entertainment. Amongst the list of luminaries appears Fulera Gariba. Fulera is a beneficiary of our women in politics project, who with the support of WiLDAF ran and eventually won a seat as a District Assembly member in December 2010. She is the youngest aspirant at only 21 years of age. Despite such achievements, the article has a serious message. How can 51% of the nation have such low representation in politics and the economy? Ghana’s political parties need to act now on the promises they have made. To read the full article click- here

Women in Education

In the west of Ghana our project, in collaboration with the Gender Centre and others, organised a community get-together for 250 participants. This event brought together community people, traditional and religious leaders, local politicians and state agency staff to discuss equal access to education, training, science and technology.

- With only 37% of tertiary students being female there is a big disparity in access to education at this level.

Therefore the objective was to raise awareness on the advantages and benefits of educating women and girls towards Ghana’s development and poverty reduction.

In the eastern part of Ghana the same discussion on the importance of girls accessing tertiary education was held with prominent local women’s groups and school girls from the district’s senior high schools.

Nationally our partner FIDA-Ghana participated in a series of radio and television discussions focussing on women’s access to education and training.

Women and justice

In the east of the country one of our paralegals, under the FIDA project, was extensively interviewed on one of the main radio stations (Joy FM) explaining how with the support of Womankind she has been working to improve women’s access to justice through the provision of basic legal counselling, referrals and assisting to prepare cases for court.

Womankind will follow up soon on the success of these events