First Ladies urged to support dev initiatives

The First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, has called on African first ladies and spouses of heads of government to use their positions to continuously seek technical and financial support from development partners to sustain and improve the projects they undertake.

“This will complement the efforts of governments in addressing the educationas and health needs of their people,” she said. 

She was speaking at a meeting, held on the sidelines of the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, for African first ladies and spouses of heads of government. They discussed ways of meeting the health and education needs of their respective countries.

Challenges 

Representatives of the various countries made a strong case to give girls equal opportunity as boys, to access education.

This can be done by halting the practice of recalling girls from school to help nurse their younger siblings and sending them to farm or hawk to support their families.

The First Lady of Ghana, Mrs Lordina Mahama, outlined Ghana’s educational challenges and what was being done to address them.

The inability of parents to provide learning materials and food for their children, inadequate infrastructure and the non-availability of appropriate teaching and learning materials to support comprehensive education were some of the factors Mrs Mahama mentioned as challenges that hampered quality education.

She cited the introduction of the Capitation Grant which abolished the payment of school fees for basic education and the introduction of the school feeding programme, which provided one hot meal a day to all children in public schools as motivation to encourage the less privileged to enrol and complete their education.

Lordina Foundation

The First Lady also spelled out what her foundation, the Lordina Foundation, was doing to curb the educational challenges.

She indicated that her foundation had instituted a scholarship scheme for brilliant, needy students to further their education in Ghana and overseas. “These girls, who would otherwise have dropped out of school, have now been provided with a better future.”

“My foundation is also facilitating a project to provide better accommodation and vocational education for outcast women and their dependants in the Gambaga camp in the Northern Region. This is a camp where mostly elderly women who have been accused of witchcraft and cast out of their communities, seek shelter and protection,” she said.

The First Lady further stated that the Lordina Foundation was working to secure funding for the construction of dining halls, hygienic kitchens and teacher motivation programmes in schools in deprived communities.