Asempa Publishers, a leading Christian publishing company in Ghana under the Christian Council of Ghana, collaborated with an NGO–Inspire Today–to support girls in Yilo Krobo Municipal Education Directorate with reading materials. This collaboration between Asempa Publishers and Inspire Today marked the International Day of the Girl-Child 2024.
The celebration of the day reflects the successful emergence of girls and young women as a distinct cohort in development policy, programming, campaigning and research.
Beneficiaries were from 15 different cluster of schools in the Yilo Krobo Municipal Education Directorate. In addition to the books, the girls were given sanitary pads, bathing soap, washing detergent, deodorants, shaving sticks and educational materials.
Executive Director of Inspire Today, Etornam Sey, underscored the need to invest in the girl-child. “International Day of the Girl increases awareness of issues faced by girls around the world. Many global development plans do not include or consider girls, and their issues become invisible.
More than 62 million girls around the world had no access to education as of 2014, according to USAID. Worldwide and collectively, girls ages 5 to 14 spend more than 160 million hours more on household chores than boys of the same age do.
“Globally, one in four girls are married before age 18. A day like this helps raise awareness not only of the issues that girls face, but also of what is likely to happen when those problems are solved. For example, educating girls helps reduce the rate of child marriage and diseases, and helps strengthen the economy by helping girls have access to higher paying jobs.”
This year’s theme for International Day of the Girl-Child is ‘Girls vision for the future’.
