By: Joyce Kantam Kolamon
An NGO dubbed, “Destiny Sisters”, has been inaugurated in Tamale to address the numerous challenges young girls and adolescents face that inhibit their education, career path and sexual health.
Many adolescents girls from Northern Ghana are likely to receive less education due to poverty, early marriage, teenage pregnancy and school drop out associated with menstrual hygiene.
Destiny Sisters intends to champion the course of these challenges through intensive sensitization on the importance of girl’s education and mobilize resources to support vulnerable girls in school.
Director of the organization, Ms. Muniratu Neena Adam, said “the destiny of every child is tied to how much society extends its helping hand to support them to achieve their destiny”.
Investing in girls’ education transforms communities, countries and the entire world. Today more girls than ever go to school.
However, despite progress, women and girls continue to face multiple barriers based on gender and its intersections with other factors, such as age, ethnicity, poverty, disability, and burden of domestic work in the equal enjoyment of the right to quality education.
Investing in girls’ education is viewed as one of the best ways to empower and equip them to contribute to the development of their families, communities, and nations.
Nevertheless, access to education for girls especially in Northern Ghana is still a challenging issue and, as a result, many girls and women have lower levels of education compared to their male peers. Rural adolescent girls are more disadvantaged and vulnerable than girls in urban areas, who are at school and have higher chances to receive education.
Director of Destiny Sisters, Ms. Muniratu Neena Adam, said the NGO will also provide vocational training skills for girls who are unable to make it in school to give them income opportunities for sustainable livelihood.
“We intend to secure a sustainable pool of resources to provide intervention of all forms including guidance and counselling for the girls”.
“This we intend to do by continuing to embark on sensitization on the need for girl child education, to intensify sensitization on the negative effects of retrogressive cultural and religious practices that undermine girl-child education especially in the North, to form community focal points for addressing urgent problems on girl child education”.
Ms Adam commended the support received so far and appealed to organizations, individuals and the public to support her team to win the fight.
“Over the years we have intervened in the lives and careers of many young women from primary school to the university. Madam Chair, Ladies and Gentlemen, Destiny Sisters will be most grateful to receive clothes from you, shoes, school uniforms, mathematical sets, sanitary pads, sewing machines as well as any good intervention you wish to make in the lives of these girls”.
The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Shani Alhassan Shaibu, said though the free senior high school policy was introduced to alleviate some burdens on parents and guardians, there are still pertinent challenges that need to be dealt with by parents and society since the government cannot do it alone.
The minister pledged a donation of 15 sewing machines and 3 salons to the organization.
