Women contesting assembly elections attend workshop

A non-governmental organisation, partnered by the British High Commission, has organised a training workshop on Local Government System and Opportunities for women participating in the forthcoming District Assembly Elections.

The participants, including female teachers, youth groups, heads of departments, staff of CHRAJ, and members of the Ghana Hair Dressers and Beauticians Association, discussed the Challenges to Women Participation in Local Governance and Strategies among other topics.

The organisers, BanguManga Integrated Rural Development Society (BIRDS), a Yendi-based NGO, and the British High Commission, pledged to support women to contest and win the fourth-coming Assembly and Unit Committee Elections in the Yendi Municipality to promote girl-child education.

Gumpal Lana Sumani Shei, Chief of Gumpal Community, encouraged the participants to work hard to win the elections so as to serve as role models to the girl-child.

He said when more women were elected assembly women in the Northern Region they would educate and encourage parents in their electoral areas to send their children, especially the girl-child, to school.

Naa Sulemana Abdulai, Chief of Walifong, a suburb of Yendi, urged women to adopt the “can do spirit” and work to overcome all self imposed barriers.

He promised to talk to men and women under his jurisdiction to identify qualified women to register and contest the elections.

Miss Fatimata Tunteiya Alhassan, Representative of BIRDS, said since 1998 when Ghana adopted a comprehensive decentralised local government system to involve people at the grassroots in decision-making, only one woman, Madam Zuwera Bawah, has ever been elected as an assembly woman for the Gagbini Electoral Area from 1998 to 2007 at the Yendi Assembly.

Miss Alhassan urged the participants to come out with pragmatic steps to mobilise women to contest and win the elections.

A member of the Ghana National Association of Female Teachers, Madam Faida Busegri Sulemana, appealed to BIRDS to convene another forum for the Association to encourage members to join the campaign to enhance female participation and representation in local governance.