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.