By Dennis Peprah
Abesim, (B/R), Sept. 23, GNA – The Global Media Foundation (GloMeF) has launched a three-year adolescent inclusive project, designed to reach out and improve the general well-being of 4,500 targeted young people in the Sunyani Municipality.
GloMeF is non-profit organisation, which specializes in using social and behaviour change communication, right and evidence-based research approaches to facilitate inclusive development programmes targeting young people, women, children and other vulnerable groups in the society.
According to Mr Raphael Godlove Ahenu, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GloMeF, the implementation of the ‘Resilient City for Adolescent Project’ would directly benefit 1,500 young people and indirectly reach out to 3000 boys and girls.
The Swiss Botnar Fondation under its Resilient City for Adolescents Initiative is funding the implementation of the £300,000 project, which would seek to improve the lives of adolescents in the country.
Speaking at the launch of the project at Abesim, near Sunyani, Mr Ahenu noted that about 1.8 billion adolescent boys and girls around the world would fall short of their potentials if current policies and investment approaches failed to meet their needs.
The key project implementation partners include Sunyani Municipal Assembly, Sunyani West Municipal Assembly, Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service, Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, Catholic University of Ghana, National Youth Authority and the Ghana Enterprises Agency.
As a developing country, Mr Ahenu highlighted the need for Ghana to ensure that the youth and adolescent voices were heard and remained at the centre of decision-making processes.
By doing so, the country would be in the right position to promote the health and well-being of her rising adolescents, empower and build their resilience as well as education and skills, and their connection with people.
Mr Ahenu expressed appreciation to the Ecorys United Kingdom, which supported the GloMeF to secure the grant, and thanked the Botnar Foundation.
Giving an overview of the project, Mr Ahenu explained its implementation would adopt a three-pronged approach with regard to social, political and economic empowerment.
That involves identifying and addressing adolescents’ needs, both social and economic, increasing adolescents’ inclusion and participation in city-level planning and development, and ensuring sustainable access to quality services targeting education, health, security, job-creation
and the environment.
The project’s main goal is to create a resilient city system, which means aligning city planning and policy that promoted healthy cities for adolescents, so that its interventions would address the top priorities of adolescents.
That include improving access to good-quality and affordable healthcare, education and other social services to help reduce the negative impact of teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and mental health problems, create more job opportunities for young people that promote fairness and give adolescents the chance to learn and contribute to society.
It also involves adolescents in city planning and development areas such as security, healthcare, housing planning and education as well as increasing knowledge on, and use of innovative technology to advocate on behalf of teenagers.
GNA