Three Rights Organization, Rights And Responsibilities Initiatives Ghana, Erudite Women Empowerment Foundation, and Defense For Children International have called for stronger stakeholder collaboration towards the effective development of girls through the provision of knowledge in the digital community.
This according to them should include; appropriate ICT resources to enable them to fit into the digital world.
The groups indicated in a joint statement to mark the International Day of the Girl stated that girls will need resources including; time, space, funds, phones, computers, and trainers to become digitally knowledgeable, as every aspect of life has become digital.
The groups also indicated that girls need digital competence for peak performance in any sector they find themselves in.
The International Day of the Girl is a day that the global community celebrates the rights of the girl to education and highlighting the need to eliminate all forms of discrimination against girls.
According to the groups, girls and young women face multiple challenges purely because of their age and gender.
The groups said as much as they appreciate the efforts of digitizing the economy in respect of remittances to families from abroad, facilitating communication, use of virtual education, and improvement in social media handling, the Government and all relevant stakeholders should make digitalization a priority and plan adequately to respond to the gender-selective plans and budget to ensure that, teaching and training at all fields are digital-compliance as well as affording all especially teachers to be computer-literate to translate effective and enhanced knowledge to the children.
They also called on the National cyber security parameters to intensify their operations at all levels since in the wake of COVID-19, as many children are at risk of their basic rights being undermined due to the exposure to social exploitation and use of violence.
An initiative called She Leads, is an initiative of Plan International Netherlands (PIN), Defence for Children – ECPAT the Netherlands (DCI-ECPAT), African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), and Terre des Hommes the Netherlands (TdH).
It is situated at the intersection of child rights, gender equality and civic space. Our consortium unites child rights organisations, feminist/women’s rights organisations, and GYW-led groups.
The main objective of the project is to increase the sustained influence of girls and young women (GYW) on decision-making and the transformation of gender norms in formal and informal institutions.
The consortium envisages achieving this objective by working through three interrelated domains: Social and Cultural Domain: Support by increased acceptance of positive social gender norms, Civil Society Domain.
Enhancement of collective action of girls and young women in a gender-responsive civil society and Institutional Domain, Enabling meaningful participation of girls and young women in decision-making by political institutions.
In Ghana, the project is being implemented by 4 partners: Defence for Children International (DCI) Ghana, Plan International Ghana, Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCed) and Women’s Aspire Network’s (WAN) in the following regions; Ashanti, Central, Greater Accra, Northern, Upper East and Upper West.
“It is in context that the “She Leads Project” is implemented to raise awareness of the obstacles that girls face in this digital generation and to celebrate and reinforce achievements on 11 October 2021.”
“This Platform provides the opportunity to celebrate girls’ peoples’ views and initiatives on a global digital scale. Today, young people hold a crucial role working towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and related frameworks,” the statement explained
In the Ashanti Region, the project is being implemented in the following Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs): Asante Akim North, Asokore Mampong, Bosome Freho, Bosomtwe, Kumasi and Obuasi by DCI Ghana, Rights and Responsibilities Initiatives Ghana (RRIG) and Erudite Women’s Empowerment Foundation (EWEF).