FAWE REWARDS TEN GIRLS FOR EXCELLENCE

Patsy E. Nyarkoh, an award winner receiving her award from Mrs Mary Quaye, a Director of Pre-Tertiary Education unit of GES.

 First published in the Daily Graphic on saturday, June 4, 2011. Gender Desk

 The forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) Ghana, envisions to promote gender equity and equality in education with emphasis on girls in terms of access, retention, and performance by working with partners at global, continental, national, and local levels in sub-Saharan African to create positive societal attitudes, policies and practices.

FAWE’s programmes fall in line with the government’s vision of creating an enabling environment for children to go through their education successfully and girls need to take advantage of the opportunity to move to the highest level of the educational ladder.

In this respect, FAWE has rewarded 10 girls who have excelled in their examinations, demonstrated leadership qualities and are pursuing higher education nation-wide.

The ceremony was held in line with FAWE’s yearly Excellence Awards that aim at motivating young girls and empowering them to climb the educational ladder to the top as well as face life’s challenges and be responsible.

The award winners are: Patsy Ewurama Nyarkoh of Jayee University College, Accra; Abi Regina of Tamale Nursing Training College; Comfort Bafanaya of Brekum Senior High School; Mary Kanenor of Wa Senior High School and Fuseini Madiata of St. Francis Girls’ Senior High School, Upper West Region.

The others are Sefa Abea, Jennifer Ashilevi and Debora Oforiwaa Acquah, all of Mpraeso Senior High School, Kwahu; Sarah Arhin of the University of Winneba and Esther Nafari of the Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong.

The award winners were given citations and pieces of cloth. The National Co-ordinator of FAWE, Ms Juliana Osei, highlighted some achievements of the organization since its establishment in Ghana in 1993.

She said with the help of Ghana Education Service (GES), United Nations Education and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)and other organizations, FAWE had been able to train a number of girls nation-wide in various vocations such as dress making, batik, tie-dye production and hair dressing and have awarded scholarships to needy girls to pursue secondary education.

On behalf of the award winners, Ms Patsy Ewurama Nyarkoh thanked the executives of FAWE for their honor. She said the awardees would study even harder to justify the confidence reposed in them and serve as examples to other girls.

She advised the young girls and students of Nsaba Diaspora Girls’ Senior High School, where the programme was held to be focused, study hard, ignore all social vices and aim at attaining a high social status.

FAWE launched its 2008-2012 strategic plan, setting targeted objectives to enable the organization achieve both its mission and vision through wider adoption and implementation of our successful models for girls’ education at the national level across the sub-Saharan African region.

FAWE’s strategic objectives for 2008-2012 are to: Continue influencing the integration of gender issues in educational policies and plans in order to improve girls’ access, retention and performance, with special emphasis on partnerships; Continue to replicate FAWE’s gender-responsive interventions in order to scale them up in more countries, while developing new models to address emerging challenges in girls’ education, advocate for girls’ education and gender equity in education at community level; and Build the capacity of national chapters to improve their functionality and their ability to deliver programmes and influence policy.

The rest are to: Undertake organizational development in order to ensure the sustainability of the organization and enhance the effectiveness of its structures and programmes; and institutionalize an effective monitoring and evaluation system across the entire organization.