ASPIRING FEMALE CANDIDATES UNDERGO TRAINING (PAGE 13, OCT 14, 2010)

ASPIRING female candidates in this year’s local government elections in the Nadowli District of the Upper West Region have undergone a training workshop at Nadowli.
The workshop was aimed at encouraging women participation in the upcoming district level elections and equipping potential women candidates with the requisite information and confidence they need to contest and win elections.
The workshop, which was organised by Pronet North in collaboration with Concern Universal Ghana, was funded by the European Union.
Addressing the participants, the project’s programme co-ordinator, Miss Nerissa Bankpiebu, said the project, dubbed “Women in Politics”, was an integral part of Pronet North’s women empowerment programme being implemented in 52 communities in four districts: Jirapa, Nadowli, Lawra and Lambussie-Karni.
She said the talk about women empowerment for equity and effective development would only be a rhetoric if any such initiative fell short of politically empowering these women.
“Women in our communities at different levels have demonstrated their great ability to deliver on expected tasks when given the opportunity.
Societal classifications that relegate women to the background and limit them to domestic chores have over the years proven to be inimical to the total development of communities, districts and country,” she observed.
Miss Bankpiebu said women have been thought to be bereft of political acumen but this had been proven wrong as they had demonstrated their ability to work like their male counterparts.
She said women represented a large segment of “our society and their exclusion from national politics can only be described as shooting ourselves in our feet.”
She pointed out that the project was not aimed at opposing men in society but at bringing the rich knowledge of women to complement the efforts of men, who had been in the driving seat all this while.
Miss Bankpiebu hoped the workshop would go a long way to improve the confidence level of the participants as they try to get elected as assembly members.
For his part, the regional director of the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) urged the women to be assertive in their opinions and try hard to convince people to vote for them.
He was happy that women were gradually coming out of their shells by offering themselves for elections.
The Nadowli District Chief Executive, Mr Abu Kasangbata, gave the assurance that government would continue to support women to realise their fullest potential.
He challenged women to collaborate with one another to improve upon themselves.