Gender Equality, Public Health & Welfare in Ghana

Over the last quarter, the GVI Ghana team has strategically moved towards providing a broader safety, welfare and social protection net for the women and children of the Ga South region of Accra. Building on our previous work in first aid training, menstrual hygiene awareness, and mental health support, we have introduced training models, workshops and activities across a broader range of gender-critical subjects. These include domestic violence, gender based violence, building appropriate and effective relationships, confidence, bodily autonomy and consent, and many more, and they have been delivered to women and children across multiple communities and through more than a dozen local partner organisations. GVI Ghana has worked with the Ghanaian Government’s Department of Social Welfare to better understand local legal and procedural structures and actors, seek improvements in case reporting, communication and confidentiality, and to pass all of this knowledge on to community leaders, head teachers, and other key stake holders.

In addition, and as a staff team consisting of more than 90% female staff, we continue to fund and support the individual care, treatment and protection of many local women and girls on a case-by-case basis. From rehousing families who have become evicted due to lack of employment, to facilitating professional mental health and trauma support to children who have been the victims of abuse, to providing the funding to deliver longterm medical care to women who are suffering from a broad range of gendered and often critical health concerns. This work is complex, sensitive and has required that we forge contracts and relationships with a broad range of professional medical and psychological clinics and experts. To this effect, on Friday 18th March 2022 we will be the primary sponsor of the launch of a brand new Women & Children’s Healthcare Clinic in Oshieye, Greater Accra, a clinic we will work in partnership with to provide geographically closer and better specialised healthcare to local women and children.

Over the next quarter, our team will seek to expand our social welfare net even further, and to forge relationships with new community groups, new medical partners and new communities. The most vulnerable women and children in the 6 communities we currently work in number into the thousands, and a considerable investment in time, energy and finances are required to protect them. This work absolutely changes, and sometimes even saves, lives, and we are incredibly grateful to all of our friends at GlobalGiving, our past donors, and any future donors or partners who have made this possible and/or would like to continue to support our mission.

Heartfelt thanks.

From the GVI Ghana Team and the women and children of Ghana.

Over the last quarter GVI has continued to meet its existing program targets in Ghana in relation to 3 key areas of women’s empowerment and health as outlined in our last report: menstrual health for school students; first aid training for local women; and a collaboration with the Ghana Girl Guides Association to educate local children on sanitation, hygiene and women’s rights. Our team has delivered 8 workshops to 600 female students from local schools in menstrual health and hygiene, distributing over 1000 sanitary pads and wipes free-of-charge. We have trained and certified an additional 30 local women in adult and child first aid, empowering a critical first line in injury and illness response in communities where access to affordable local healthcare its limited. And we have worked with 6 schools to raise awareness in oral hygiene, COVID safety and the use of face masks/sanitisers. Much of this work has been completed through a lens of women’s empowerment, with project activities pro-actively encouraging discussions and the framing of information from a position of gendered equality. These project areas have become a main stay of GVI’s women’s empowerment work in Ghana and will continue throughout 2021/22.

Our team continues to address the challenges facing the families of Kokrobite in relation to health: More than 500 children have been sponsored by GVI - in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service - to have their Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme access renewed or registered for the first time. By inviting and sponsoring Ghana Health Service registration teams to the community and talking with schools, parents and children about the importance of seeking professional consultations and diagnosis when healthcare concerns present, GVI has encouraged hundreds of families to prioritise modern medicine over less effective traditional medicines, whilst also meeting the costs of subscription to healthcare insurance to provide a critical reduction in front line costs for those families. This has proven particularly important as many families continue to recover financially from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.

Finally, we've invested in the expansion of our vocational training programs for local women. Kokrobite is a popular tourist destination but many local women do not have the skills or knowledge to identify how they might tap into tourism spending to help support their families. GVI now runs an almost daily and ongoing classes in beading, jewellery making and artisan crafts, with women from the local community continuing to attend regularly and learn exciting new skills that support the creation of wares that can be sold for profit on and around the local beaches, bars and restaurants. The program has been delivered by local female artisans teaching often unemployed local mums for 8 hours a week over each month. Dozens of local women are now competent manufacturers of jewellery and are able to supplement their traditional incomes as a result.

These projects tend to be focused on the passing of knowledge and skills and so are relatively low cost in relation to material resource. However, our ability to engage third-party professionals - such as Health Service officials and competent workshop instructors - and to meet the costs of their time and professional services, does require ongoing support from our amazing donor community. Every penny we receive through GlobalGiving helps us sustain and expand our programs in Ghana. We therefore warmly welcome any future offers of support from the GlobalGiving community.

Thank you for your generous support and warm wishes from us and our partners in Kokrobite!