By Maxwell Awumah, GNA
Ho, June 10, GNA-The Fifth Professor Margaret Gyapong Annual Lecture and Mentorship programme for female students, faculty and staff has taken place at the Cedi Auditorium of the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ho.
The event coincided with a scholarship scheme, named after Prof Gyapong’s mother, “Dora Gertrude Quaye Memorial Scholarship Fund” which was instituted to ameliorate the suffering of brilliant and needy students, who direly needed the facility.
The lecture and mentorship event, themed, “Nurturing the Girl-Child: What Investment Do We Need?” with six recipients awarded scholarships for the 2026/2027 academic period, worth GHS36,520.
Professor Mrs Esther Yeboah Danso-Wiredu, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), the guest speaker in her expose’ said the girl-child could never be a problem to be solved but a promise to be fulfilled through policy and investments.
She added “Nurturing the girl-child is not the responsibility of governments alone, but a shared duty of families, individuals, institutions, and communities but must trigger above all the willingness of the girl-child to be nurtured.”
The Pro-Vice Chancellor underscored the need for greater investment to nurture the character of the girl-child, moral uprightness – religiously and socially, while giving reference and value to all people you meet in life.
Defining her leadership style, Prof Danso-Wiredu believed in sharing tasks, setting targets with tentative timelines and working towards them, with the firm conviction in achieving results and loudly giving deaf ear to gossips and detractions.
She urged the students to aspire to leadership roles and attributed her sudden rise to taking keen interest in institutional positions including being Head of Department, UTAG Treasurer, Vice Dean, Deputy Director, Director, Pro VC, and becoming chair of many boards, committees and programmes
Prof Danso-Wiredu emphasized the inclusion of girls and young women in decision-making platforms, support leadership programmes for girls, enforce policies that promote gender equality, highlighting that “when girls are included in leadership, societies progress.”
“The future of societies and girls cab be guaranteed when conscious investments were made in girls, which denotes stronger families, healthier communities and more prosperous nations.”
Yet, Prof Danso-Wiredu stated many girls still face barriers of limited access to education, early marriage, gender-based violence among others.
Prof Lydia Aziato, Vice Chancellor of UHAS, in a brief remark extolled Prof Gyapong, as an accomplished and internationally acclaimed medical anthropologists and a former Director, Institute of Health Research, UHAS (2018-2024).
She added Prof Gyapong donated her prize “Outstanding Female Science Prize Money of 20,000 Euros in Oct 2021, gifted her by the European Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), which was used to set up the scholarship scheme in the name of her late mother.
The Vice Chancellor said the Governing Council of UHAS in December 2021, in acknowledging her sterling performance instituted the lecture and mentorship programme, while granting the role out of the scholarship scheme.
Prof Gyapong said her growing up difficulties with a single-parent cuts across society and her resolve to ameliorate the canker, resulted in giving back to society, as a civic responsibility.
She said her late mother was committed to educating her children and other family members and sacrificed all she has for this task but unfortunately died in 1991, one year after her marriage and never to enjoy the fruits of her labour.
She paid glowing tribute her spouse, Prof John Gyapong, former CV of UHAS, family and friends for their contributions into the fund, while making an open request for all and sundry to support her mother’s dream to reachout to many more female students under the scheme indicating since inception.
GNA
Kenneth Odeng Adade