Abiola Bawuah, founder of The Abiola Bawuah Foundation (ABF), has been nominated for the Women Empowerment category of the 2020 Millennium Excellence Awards. This comes as a result of her outstanding support for women empowerment by empowering girls, especially in the rural communities.
Currently, over 70 girls in the Ashanti, Central and Greater Accra Regions have been sent back to school with aid from benevolent donors such as FanMilk Ghana Limited, Unilever Ghana Limited, Lexta Ghana Limited and UNFPA.
Upon hearing her nomination, Ms. Bawuah expressed: “It’s refreshing, not because I have been nominated for the Women Empowerment Category, but that the diligent work we are doing at Abiola Bawuah Foundation has been recognised. We are empowering girls for a promising future.”
She noted that it is upon this premise that ABF relentlessly empowers girls across the country, especially in rural Ghana, with education. Ms. Bawuah revealed that her foundation is aligned the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 objective to promote gender equality.
“By so doing, we bridge the educational skill gap between males and females in our communities, especially in the rural areas, and reduce female school dropouts. ABF therefore transcends geographical, religious and physical borders to lend a hand,” she added.
Abiola Bawuah Foundation is chaired by Elizabeth Hayfron Asare and a board of trustees: including Oluseun Jooda, Nkechie Denise, Nana Hemaa Adwoa Awindor and Abiola Bawuah; with a project coordinator, Stephen Asiedu, and project officer, Geraldine Osafo Ntiri.
In the account of her life-journey chronicled in her book ‘Chosen from the Darkness’, Ms. Bawuah came from a community of starkly conservative cultural practices which subordinated the female gender.
Her ability to rise in the face of cruel societal pressure and through the ranks of leadership forms a part of ABF’s passion to empower women. “We continue our dedication to increasing the number of deprived and disadvantaged girls the foundation can support. We are therefore open to funding and support from donors and activist groups which are as passionate as we are,” she said.
