LaDMA holds workshop on gender mainstreaming
The La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly (LaDMA) in Accra has held a sensitisation forum on gender mainstreaming.
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It was to empower women to make informed decisions on issues of socio-economic and national importance that affect their lives directly or indirectly.
The workshop, which was on the theme: “Women participation in decision-making process,” was organised by the Gender desk of the assembly.
The purpose of the workshop was to encourage more women to participate in district-level and general elections, everyday decision making processes, as well as in leadership contests.
Participants included seamstresses, tailors, hairdressers, soap-making groups among other artisans in the municipality.
Active women participation
In her welcome address, the Municipal Director for Social Welfare and Community Development, Madam Hajia Salima Imoro, said the issue of gender was not limited to women, adding that the workshop sought to sensitise both men and women to decision-making processes to enable them to make better decisions that affect their lives and their communities on a daily basis.
In a presentation on decision-making process, the Greater Accra Regional Director of the Department of Women, Mrs Comfort Ablemeti, said decision making started from the home and women should be actively involved in them as those decisions affect their lives directly.
She called on the women not to limit their decision making to the home alone but also take decisions that could positively impact the community as a whole.
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She urged women to be courageous and come out to aspire to positions at both the grassroots and national level to give them a bigger platform to implement major decisions that would affect the lives of the people.
Mrs Ablemeti said women constituted about 51 per cent of the population in Ghana and there was the need for them to take part in decision-making processes both at home and in governance towards national developmental issues.
Organised groups
The Municipal Chief Executive, Ms Rita Odoley Sowah, advised the women to take part in active governance and political leadership roles.
She called on the women to form organised groups so they could access assistance from the Social Welfare and Community Development Department in the form of training in various trades or skills.
Ms Sowah appealed to them to take active participation in ensuring a clean environment, especially in the ongoing monthly sanitation exercises.
In an open forum, the idea was mooted that the forum should be organised periodically because it could boost the confidence of women to participate in the district-level elections and other leadership contests.
Participants outlined some of the developmental needs they wished to see in the communities, which included assistance for brilliant but needy students, jobs or trade for educated but needy students, clean environment, start-up capital for trained youth, establishment of community development centres to empower widows and the need for additional markets and clinics for the Tse-Addo community.