The Chairperson of the Network for Young Women’s Empowerment, Ms. Ida Nakaar, has called on women to develop themselves through education and skills training in order to better position them for leadership roles in society.
She explained that inasmuch as women’s empowerment models sought to create the needed opportunities for more women to assume leadership positions in the country, if the women themselves did not have the needed qualifications for those roles, their struggles would be in vain.
“When there is a vacant managerial position with a fair chance for everyone, more men than women apply for it, because many of the women you would realise do not have the needed qualifications to apply for the position,” she lamented.
MsNakaar stated this at a day’s workshop for young ladies in the Upper West Region to help build their capacity and enlighten them on women in leadership on Saturday.
Sponsored by Plan International Ghana, the meeting sought to imbibe in the young ladies who were drawn from the Wa West, Wa East and Sissala West Districts as well as Wa Municipal, the need for them to aspire for higher positions and also train them to be able to contest and assume those positions.
“We need active women to take up leadership positions and help in promoting issues about women and that was the purpose for putting together this network to get women who have gone through series of training and have been empowered to impact on society,” she stated.
She called on women to stay positive, work on themselves and live past societal stereotypes of women in leadership in order to embolden them for future positions in society.
A resource person at the meeting, MsBridget Gandaa, addressing the young ladies, said although women constituted a greater part of the Ghanaian population, their representation in leadership positions was not encouraging.
“Even at the district assembly level, only a few women are elected as assembly women, the rest are appointees; the issue has to do with less women offering themselves up for positions and certain stereotypes in society,” she said.
She explained that women required education and confidence to be able to do away with the limitations that had been placed in them by society.
MsGandaasaid it was, therefore, incumbent on women occupying notable positions to serve as role models and mentors to the younger ones to enable them to aspire and become more prominent in society.
“Women district chief executives, members of parliaments, heads of institutions, among others should begin to influence society, especially the younger girls,” she stated.
She said women in leadership positions were able to work for the welfare of their colleagues because they understood their needs better than males.
“But we have certain biases that affect women such as ‘women cannot be leaders, ”women have to be behind the men and not in front,’ ‘women are weak,’ among others that kill the confidence of women,” she lamented.
She called for society to promote the welfare of women and support them in attaining higher positions in life.