School for Life undertakes Leadership and Advocacy Training for Female Local Committee Members

By Abdul-Mumin

As part of School for Life’s mission of working to improve and sustain access to and quality of basic education in Ghana through functional literacy and advocacy as a means to address poverty, underdevelopment and gender inequality; advocacy and leadership training is being organized for Local female committee members across three districts (Tolon, East Gonja and Nanumba-north districts) . The Local Committees were set up by School for Life in the operational communities to oversee the school for life program in their respective communities. Each committee has five people with a minimum of three females. 

The purpose of the leadership and advocacy training is to imbue in the female committee members the requisite skills and capacities needed to take up leadership roles in their communities and districts. Importantly, the training was also meant to encourage females to rise up to the challenge and advocate strongly towards addressing the needs of the communities. It is only when the majority of people in our communities and districts consciously advocate and influence policy initiatives that their real needs and problems can be addressed. Because of this, and in view of the overriding fact that females constitute more than fifty percent of people in our communities, the training was designed purposely for the female committee members.

Being a part of the training session in the Kali zone in the Tolon district, the women were very informed on the topic and shared with each other the strategies to use in advocacy and the numerous benefits they could accrue from advocacy works. These benefits, one participant summarized as “promoting unity, facilitating development and ensuring peace and stability.” These amazing revelations further consolidated School for Life’s belief that when women are informed, empowered and given the chance to lead development process, they are indeed capable and will lead us to our dream land.

This experience and many others are the reasons why we encourage everyone to join us and join hands towards building the capacity of women in leadership and advocacy to promote national development. 

Abdul-Mumin joins the School for Life Team!

My name is Abdul-Mumin Ahmed, and I am the newly appointed Communications and Advocacy Officer for the School for Life Program. In my new position here at School for Life, I will be in charge of managing the School for Life web page and the School for Life page on Facebook, supporting SfL’s Pedagogical research officer to undertake advocacy based research, improving School for Life’s relationship with the media and development partners, assisting in the development of the School for Life’s newsletter, organizing and coordinating advocacy capacity building for School for Life field staff and Monitoring advocacy interventions at the local level.

As a new member of the School for Life family, I find this position an extremely challenging one, especially because it is a newly created position with a lot of expectations.  Being the first person to take it up, I am greatly challenged to put up my best in projecting the image and good works of School for Life. In view of the nature of the position, I will be working closely to support the Deputy Manager for Advocacy and Gender, Lawrencia Dakurah-Abakisi.

I was born in Walewale, the district capital of the west mamprusi district, in Northern Ghana; where I undertook my primary and junior secondary school education. I continued senior secondary school education in business senior high school in Tamale and proceeded to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology(KNUST) where I  studied BSc Development Planning. While studying at KNUST, I was a member of the KNUST students’ parliament, Ghana Association of Student Planners-KNUST and a prominent member of the Student’s Welfare Project. My participation in a number of advocacy works at Students’ Welfare Project lead me to nursing a dream of working in advocacy interventions. This dream,  is what triggered me to taking up the role here at School for Life.

My coming here, in my estimation, appropriately fulfils the purpose of the adage that holds that “we must always be fueled by our passion, beyond all other considerations”. My enduring passion for development works back in KNUST urged me to take up an internship with TCAI (Teacher Community Assistant Initiative), a project that was jointly implemented by School for Life and Innovations for Poverty Action across selected districts in Ghana. The project sought to determine the best method of remedial education or otherwise that could improve learning levels in basic schools. My involvement in the project continued after I completed school and ended in 2013 when the project implementation came to an end. I also engaged myself with Camfed-Ghana (an NGO that supports female education in a number of districts in Ghana) as an assistant in the Education Programme Office.

Having attained these fits of experience in development works, I finally decided to settle with School for Life as Communications and Advocacy Officer for two crucial reasons. Firstly, to continue the pursuance of development works that helps people build their potential through education. And importantly, to fulfill my long nurtured dream of working in advocacy interventions.