Volta Region promotes enrolment of girls into male-dominated professions

A regional campaign to promote enrolment of girls into male-dominated professions has been launched in Ho, in line with the government’s policy framework for achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG).

Known as the Gender Responsive Skills and Community Development Project (GRSCDP), the four-year project is jointly sponsored by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the government to improve national capacities to enhance gender mainstreaming and improve access to quality skills training for gainful employment and entrepreneurship for women and girls.

Under one of its interventions, the project aims at creating public awareness through a campaign on increasing enrolment of girls into male-dominated professional trades such as electrical installation, masonry and carpentry.  

It is being implemented by the Department of Women of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.

At the launch of the project in Ho last Wednesday, the Volta Regional Minister, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, said under the project, 10 computers had been given to the Ho and Krachi community development vocational and technical institutes and one motorbike to the Department of Community Development.

He also announced that 65 scholarships were available for girls from extremely poor households to be given to the six districts earmarked for the project to enable them to pursue technical skills training for three years.

A total of 59 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies have been earmarked for the project nationwide and those in the Volta Region are Ho, Hohoe, and Kpando municipalities; and the Central-Tongu, Agotime-Ziope and Krachi-West districts.

The regional minister called for an end to societal norms and prejudices which blocked the chances of females in acquiring technical skills to build their capacities for the job market.

The Volta Regional Director of the Department of Women, Madam Lena Alai, said 50 girls had so far been enrolled and were pursuing various courses and added that they were facing constraints although they were under government sponsorship.

She, therefore, proposed that the project should be linked with other interventions such as MASLOC to enable them to establish themselves after training.

In a statement, the regional co-ordinator of the Women in Technical Education (WITED) of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ms Theodora Nutakor, said funding for the sector had been abysmal following the withdrawal of sponsorship from UNESCO and the DFID for a year.

She, however, said WITED had donated working tools to 27 girls and women from various technical institutes and workshops in addition to a compressor to a female carpenter.

Ms Nutakor expressed the hope that the project would give impetus to the steady and consistent sensitisation process to set all stakeholders in the region to pay adequate attention to the enrolment of girls into non-traditional professional trades.

For his part, the Regional Director of Department of Community Development, Mr Anthony Tawiah, called on parents, churches, assembly members and chiefs to encourage women and girls to enrol in non-traditional professional trades.

Three female role models gave their testimonies at the launch. They were Miss Bernice Soir, 22, a mason at the Public Works Department in Ho, Miss Mary Ofosu, 32, a forklift operator, and Miss Susan Tetteh, an auto mechanical engineering student at the Ho Polytechnic.

The Chairman for the function and Paramount chief of Ziavi traditional area, Togbe Kwaku Ayim IV, called for the re-introduction of workshops for all junior high schools to help prop up the interest of girls in technical education.