The Savannah Women Integrated Development Agency (SWIDA – Ghana) has launched a project aimed at contributing to dismantle gender-stereotypical norms that affect the progress of women in the Northern Region.
The Women Empowerment for Leadership and Action for Development (Women-LEAD) Project also seeks to mentor and empower young girls to help them reach their potentials, as well as promote gender equality at all levels in the Northern Region.
The project will be implemented in the Tamale Metropolitan and Sagnarigu Municipal areas, with five communities from each district as direct beneficiaries.
The components for the Women-Lead project include the economic empowerment of women, mobilization, sensitization, and campaign to end gender-based and all forms of violence against women. Also, the project seeks to work with policymakers and implementers to influence the implementation of gender-sensitive policies through engagements with duty bearers and stakeholders responsible for women issues.
The three-year project is being funded by Global Affairs Canada and Plan International Ghana, under the auspices of Plan International’s “Women’s Voice and Leadership” project in Ghana.
Speaking at the launch of the project, Executive Director of SWIDA – Ghana, Hajia Alima Sagito-Saeed said the organization had identified issues of a high prevalence of definition of gender-based roles and responsibilities affecting women in the implementing districts, hence, the need to undertake the project to help curb the problem.
Women-LEAD Project Lead at the SWIDA – Ghana, Khadijah Abdul-Samed indicated that as part of the project, ‘HeforShe’ clubs would be formed in Basic, Senior High and tertiary schools to help the campaign against gender-based violence in the communities and to garner respect from boys to girls.
To further help achieve the aim of the project, she explained that the organization would dialogue with religious and traditional authorities on social norms that impede women’s and girl’s empowerment and find lasting solutions to such issues.
SWIDA – Ghana is a women empowerment Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), based in Tamale with its core mandate to economically empower rural women.
Over the years, SWIDA – Ghana has facilitated the acquisition of lands for women to farm, worked with youth groups in the Northern Region to sensitize and campaign against child marriage, violence against women, and has run mentorship programs for young girls.
swidagh.org 