NGO trains new Assembly women

The Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA), an NGO, has trained some new Assembly Women from the three Northern regions to make them effective representatives at the assemblies to attract more women to participate in future elections.

The two-day training workshop discussed among others strategies how to fulfill campaign promises, how to mobilise resources and how to reconcile with people who in one way or the other worked against them during the campaigns. FOSDA organized the programme in collaboration with the gender desk of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) with funding from Comic Relief, a UK charity organisation.

Madam Afi Yakubu, Executive Director of FOSDA speaking at the opening of the workshop in Tamale, said it was necessary for women to join hands to propel other women to their rightful positions to ensure that women were economically and politically empowered.

She said political and economic marginalization had been with women for a very long time and stressed the need to work hard to emancipate women from such marginalization, which would also strengthen the grassroots level governance in the country.

Madam Yakubu tasked the assembly women to learn more about the structures and functions of the assemblies to enable them to make meaning contributions in the development of their areas.

She advised the women to strategize on how to fulfill their campaign promises and repackage information for the electorate even if they were not able to meet the people’s aspirations.

Some of the Assembly women expressed gratitude to FOSDA for the workshop and expressed concern about some negative cultural practices in the north, which were still impeding the progress of the girl-child.

They called for a review of the dowry system especially in the Upper West Region where huge dowry is paid, saying that some husbands take undue advantage of the situation to enslave women while some women were not getting husbands because of the huge dowry.

Others pledged to use their influence to help address the problem of child and forced marriages in the area, as well as improving the girl-child education and to work for the economic empowerment of women in their respective electoral areas.