Estate developer to place widows on company's payroll

Danywise Estate and Construction at Obuasi in the Ashanti Region has announced plans to place widows, aged 60 years and above, on the company's payroll in a move to end widespread discrimination and injustices against women after their husbands' death.

The company has also introduced a scholarship scheme as part of its corporate social responsibility for deprived children, including children of widows, throughout their basic education.

The Chief Executive Officer of Danywise Estate and Construction, Mr Frank Aboagye Danyansah, who said he was deeply touched by predicament of widows, made the announcement at a workshop for over 100 women in Obuasi.

He said the programme, organised on the theme: 'Empowering Women for Change,' intended to deepen women's knowledge in wealth creation to enable them to take sufficient care of their dependants.

Resource persons from GN Bank and Obuasi Government Hospital took the women through several topics bordering on lifestyle and wealth creation towards improved living conditions and welfare.

Mr Danyansah described females in their old age as 'reservoir of knowledge and wisdom' which reflect the Ghanaian tradition of making reference to 'consulting the old lady' in matters that appeared complex to deal with.

Mr Danyansah, who is also the parliamentary aspirant of the Progressive Peoples Party in Obuasi East Constituency, urged government to make rights and needs of widows a priority in policy making.

He said several financial leakages in the system through corrupt acts and bad policies could have been redirected to investments in women's skills development as well as child education programmes to empower them in society.

'Children and women are the people we must invest in, they hold the future of our country; our policies and programmes should be targeted at them; development is about our future not our stomachs,' he said.

He said a comprehensive policy was being rolled out to make sure every child benefited from the scholarship being instituted to help the several less privileged but brilliant children to go through senor high school education at least.

'For our women, all the windows who are 60 and more will be put on a payroll of my company to cushion them against economic hardship and from poverty.'

Women advocates say widows in Ghana lack welfare benefits and are often exposed to insecurity while in many instances they fall victims to systematic seizure of property and evictions by their late husband's family among many other ill treatments.