By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Navrongo (U/E), Feb 28, GNA – Some women groups from four districts in the Upper East Region have received financial literacy training as part of efforts to help fight rising teenage pregnancy, child marriage and other sexual and reproductive health challenges affecting adolescents.
The training, organised by the Forum for African Women Educationalists Ghana (FAWE-GH), a non-governmental organisation, was to enable the women groups to acquire knowledge on financial management to enable them to expand their savings culture and invest in productive ventures to maximise profits to help cater for the needs of their adolescent children.
The groups comprised members of some Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) from the Kassena-Nankana and Builsa North Municipalities, and Kassena-Nankana West and Bongo Districts, where FAWE-GH was rolling out a five-year project to address sexual and reproductive health issues and gender inequality among adolescents.
It is part of the Global Affairs Canada sponsored project dubbed “Sexual Health and Reproductive Education (SHARE)” being implemented by a consortium led by Right to Play, WaterAid Ghana, FHI360 and FAWE-GH.
The project, among other things, seeks to advance gender equality through providing access to age-appropriate sexual and reproductive education and gender-responsive care for young people, particularly girls and young women.
Speaking at Navrongo during the training, Ms Dora Muchiah, the Programmes Manager, FAWE-GH, noted that the financial literacy training was part of efforts to contribute to making parents, especially women, economically independent to take care of the needs of their adolescent children.
She said issues of teenage pregnancy and child marriage resulting from transactional sex remained serious due to poverty and the inability of parents to afford the basic needs of their children, particularly girls and expressed the hope that the intervention would help to reduce the canker.
“We noticed that most of the women groups are into the VSLA, so we trained them on how they can strengthen their groups and increase membership, manage their monies, invest them wisely and be able to transact business with the banks, to be able to take loans to undertake certain initiatives.
“Once these women are empowered and know how to use their money and are making a profit, they will be better positioned to support and provide the needs of their children, especially their adolescent girls,” she said.
She said work in the communities had revealed that due to the inability of some parents to provide their adolescent girls’ needs such as sanitary pads, some males took advantage of the vulnerable state of the girls to ask for sex before helping them.
That, she said, had contributed to rising cases of teenage pregnancy with some pregnant girls compelled to marry at early ages, leading to school dropouts and other complications.
She advised the participants to use the knowledge to help improve their livelihoods and contribute to addressing challenges confronting the growth and development of young people in their respective communities.
Ms Bridget Amoah, a participant from Vea in the Bongo District, thanked FAWE-GH and its partners for the training and noted that the knowledge acquired would be extended to many groups in her communities to help make maximum impact.
GNA