Garisegu, (N/R), April 2, GNA- The Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC), through its micro-credit and small loans assistance to women, has since 2005, disbursed over GH¢758,400.00 to women's groups in the Northern Region to undertake income generation activities to improve upon their livelihoods.

The Ministry has since last year also trained over 23,000 women to undertake small-scale businesses to enhance their skills in business management with 5,000 of the beneficiaries coming from the Northern Region.

Hajia Alima Mahama, Minister of MOWAC announced this at the inauguration of agro-processing equipment in Garisegu, a suburb of the Tamale Metropolis on Tuesday. She said, in pursuit of the Ministry's vision of empowering women economically, the MOWAC had been applying some of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Funds to acquire agro-processing equipment for various women groups in the country to add value to their products. She said the Garisegu Women's Association had been hard working and had been engaged in groundnut extraction business. The Minister gave the Association GH¢2,000 as start up capital to purchase raw material for their production and urged them to manage the proceeds that would accrue from the production very well. Hajia Mahama used the occasion to appeal to parents to send their children; especially the girl-child to School, saying that, with the Capitation Grants in place, no parent has an excuse for not sending their children to School. She urged them to register with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to enable them to have access to affordable and quality healthcare.

Alhaji Mohammed A. Baba, Tamale Metropolitan Co-ordinating Director (MCD), appealed to parents to stop sending their children, especially the females to the cities to do menial jobs. He said this exposed the children to all manner of hazards including the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.