Nadowli (UWR), July 2, GNA - The Nadowli Assembly Women Advocacy Group (NAWAG) have launched girls' retention enrolment and transition project to help promote girl-child education in the district. The group has formed committees in all the 10 area councils in the district and 40 brilliant but needy girls had been selected to be supported through the provision of basic needs and counseling services to encourage them to stay in school.

Madam Sandra Scantlebury, Executive Director of NAWAG, said the project had also formed Virgin and Child Rights Clubs in schools throughout the district to help in the maintenance of girls. She said resource allocation to girls' education was inadequate and that had affected their education as many of them fall prey to men. Mr Abu Kansanbata, Nadowli District Chief Executive, who launched the project, thanked NAWAG for using the girl-child education as a tool to advance the development of the district. He said the human resource base of the district needed to be replenished through training and the provision of employable skills to take up the development challenges of the area.

Mr Kansanbata said the poverty situation in the area would be reduced if the people paid more attention to the education of their children. He said government was committed to ensuring that all children were enrolled in school and had therefore introduced free exercise books and uniform to school children to reduce the burden on parents. Government was also providing classroom accommodation and furniture to help to promote quality teaching and learning in the schools. He gave the assurance that the district assembly would collaborate with Non-Governmental Organisations to support the project to identify more girls, especially those in rural schools for assistance. Mrs Cate Bob Milliar Upper West Regional Director of the Department of Women, who graced the occasion, urged other district assembly women to emulate NAWAG and come out with development projects that would benefit girls.

She urged the women to improve on the human resource base and to take up leadership roles in the area. Mrs Milliar advised the women to ensure transparency and accountability in identifying and selection of the girls as well as resource management to win the confidence of the people. She appealed to parents not to shun their responsibilities but continue to help to provide the girls with their basic needs to enable them to attain higher education. Mr James Abu, Deputy Director of Education at Nadowli noted that because of the low attainment of education by women in the district they were subjected to a lot of suffering in all aspects of their lives. He lauded the project and urged women to support the education of their girls to become responsible people in the future. Barclays Bank and Volunteer Services Overseas (VSO) are sponsoring the project and the girls would travel to Accra on retreat to visit places of interest.