The Women, Media, and Change (WOMEC), a non-governmental group, has concluded its Gender Transformative Programming (GTP), Turning Point Project which targeted adolescent females in the Kpone-Katamanso Municipality.
The project, which spanned two-and-a-half years, saw the participation of over 500 adolescent females from ten junior high schools in the municipality, and 200 students (both boys and girls) from the Kpone Community Senior High School.
Global Affairs Canada sponsored the Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Ghana Project through Plan International, which supported several programs.
Several institutions, including Okushibri KKMA Basic, Appolonia KKMA JHS, Kpone Methodist ‘A’ School, Casmin International School, and Princeton Academy, benefitted from the project. Other schools that were part of the initiative include Haana KKMA JHS, Sebrepo Presby ‘A’ and ‘B,’ and Nii Oglie Model ‘1′.
Dr Charity Binka, Executive Director of WOMEC, disclosed that the beneficiary females received training in various areas, such as mentorship, writing skills and entrepreneurship, gender-based violence sensitisation, leadership skills, gender equality, human rights, and empowerment.
She added that the project was founded on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) five and three, which address gender equality and good health and well-being, respectively.
Dr Binka explained that Kpone-Katamanso Municipality was selected for the project due to the data collected from community stakeholders, which indicated a high level of teenage pregnancy, school dropouts, drug abuse, and sexual molestation, among other issues.
She noted that they adopted a bottom-up approach, which ensured that community stakeholders such as the Education Directorate, Health Directorate, Municipal Assembly, and others, participated in the formulation of the intervention.
At the closing ceremony of the project, stakeholders praised WOMEC for the initiative and advocated for such programs to target children in upper primary to empower them at a younger age. Some of the beneficiaries who shared their experiences said the project taught them assertiveness, confidence building, avoiding bad companies, focusing on their education, and the need to report gender-based violence to the police.
Twenty girls were recognized for excelling in an essay competition in the various subjects, as well as patrons, stakeholders, and the two best student gender clubs. Among the essay competition winners was Ms Annabel Quansah, a 14-year-old, Kpone Methodist Basic ‘A’ JHS three pupil, who emerged as the overall winner with her poem ‘Shattered Dreams’.
Ms Quansah said her winning poem was inspired by seeing people going through many sufferings due to gender-based violence.
Dr Binka encouraged the girls to be peer educators for other adolescents in the community who could not join the scheme due to limited funding, and she also urged them to make good use of the mentors in order to achieve their desired future greatness.