Coronavirus has created jobs for the vulnerable - Ministry of Gender

The Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Freda Prempeh has praised the President of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for being a visionary and seeing an opportunity out of a global threat.

According to her, the able leadership of the President has led to the creation of jobs for the less privileged in a period when almost all hope was lost.

During the early days of the COVID-19 virus becoming a pandemic, the huge demand for nose masks, hand sanitizers and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) in general led to worldwide shortages.

The Deputy Minister noted that when the shortage of PPEs hit the world, Ghana which was also importing PPEs at the time was affected and had to start producing them locally.

In an interview on the Happy Morning Show hosted by Happy 98.9 FM’s Mr. Samuel Eshun, Freda Prempeh said, “When sanitizers became an essential and scarce commodity during the lockdown, the Ministry of Gender trained some vulnerable women on how to make hand sanitizers.”

She indicated that after the training under the supervision of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), these women who were previously unskilled managed to produce 16,000 gallons of sanitizers to support Ghana’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

On her authority, other women were trained to sew and bake during the period including women in her constituency. “Women in my community were trained to sew and produced over 20,000 nose masks. COVID-19 has created jobs.”

Freda Prempeh mentioned that a seamstress in her constituency approached her and appreciated the government for creating jobs at a critical time when most of them had lost hope. “She told me I had managed to provide them with jobs because they could not sew for weddings or funerals. But the sewing of nose masks had helped her.”

The Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection advised Ghanaians to keep on protecting themselves against the pandemic saying, “The virus has no cure and we need to protect oursleves. The only way to protect yourself is to regard all Coronavirus safety protocols.”