The Rotary Club of Accra-Spintex, have rewarded three female students of the Old Lashibi Basic School with various prize packages as part of an essay competition dubbed ‘The power of my dream and aspiration as a girl” to aid in their education and empower them to stay in school and achieve more academic excellence.
In partnership with Girls Tower Height Inc., USA, the competition focused on girls in order to fulfil the company’s dream of motivating and empowering young girls. According to them, research done by the United Nations indicates that one out of every four girls in Africa is out of school.
“So basically the initiative is to motivate and push girls to always excel and not to drop out of school and this is because it is in line with the girl child policy we have ongoing here. So they have been given the appropriate tools and materials that is going to make their Mentorship and communication easier and better,” said the Headmistress.
The competition which started around 2020 was brought to a halt due the CoViD 19 pandemic. The headmistress explained that many girls were not readily available, hence the programme had to be rescheduled for the latter part of 2021.
“Because of the virus, we didn’t have a lot of girls on board to participate in the competition hence we worked with the few number we had” she added.
Also present was the Municipal Chief Executive of Tema West, Ana Adukwei Addo who encouraged the girls to continue to working hard. She acknowledged their efforts put into the essay competition saying “it takes hard work, dedication and the willingness to learn to come this far. This is just one step of many to come to direct you to your path of greatness. Congratulations”.
Madam Adukwei also commended the school for their tremendous effort put into preparing the students for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (B.E.C.E). She therefore motivated the final year students to take their education seriously as it is the gateway to their success and good leadership.
“I will encourage you all to take your books seriously especially, you, the final year students. If you want to become who you want to be in future, the future starts from here and now. Learn hard, prepare well so you can pass your B.E.C.E with distinction. That is your big step to the beginning of your greatness”, she added.
The 10-month long competition was supervised and moderated by the Rotary Club Accra-Spintex and the Girls Tower Height Inc.
Some of the prize packages included goodie bags, note books, stationeries and a cash prize for all competitors. The first three winners were given additional items such as laptops, tablets, internet data package with SIM cards and cash prizes.
The winner for the competition walked away with GHC300 cash prize, a laptop, internet data and stationery. The second and third positions walked away with GHC200 and GHC100 cash prize respectively including a tablet, stationery and internet data each.
They will also receive a full 12-month mentorship training from the Girls Tower Height Inc through the Rotary Club of Accra-Spintex.
In an interview with the winner, Osman Sekinatu, she expressed her excitement over the idea of the competition and how challenged she has become to read and learn at any given time. She noted that the essay competition offered her the opportunity to reflect on her future career as that was the topic she wrote on.
She said “I am very challenged about this whole competition. It has not been easy because I had to stay up at night sometimes to learn new words and expressions in order to properly prepare for this essay competition. It has been an eye-opener and I hope this encourages other young people, especially females to learn hard.”
“It has made me realize that there is nothing I cannot do especially if I put my mind to it and work towards it. Because I did not think I will come this far but because I put in the work, now I am excited. My parents are also very proud of me and even some of my class mates”, she added.
Sekinatu is aspiring to attend Mfantsiman to pursue a course in General Arts. She said “I will like to be a a big journalist in future and I believe studying General Arts will put me on the right path to become a journalist in future”.
About Rotary International
Rotary International is an international service organization whose stated purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian service and to advance goodwill and peace around the world. It is a non-political and non-religious organization.
In Ghana, there are 35 clubs across the country, in partnership with USAID and the national and local agencies of the government of Ghana, and with the support of Rotary District 6380 (Michigan, USA, and Ontario, Canada), are working with local communities to improve sustainable access to clean water, sanitation facilities etc
