Mr Kingsley Obeng-Kyereh, the Executive Coordinator for Curious Minds, has observed that society cannot develop holistically and sustainably if the focus of developmental priorities were placed only on the boy child or the girl child and neglect the other.
He said this during a community engagement on Social and Behavioural Change (SBC) in Kagu in the Wa Municipality organized by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in partnership with UNICEF and the Children and Youth in Broadcasting (CYIB Curious Minds) on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.
Mr Obeng-kyereh who was also the GBC-UNICEF SBC Project Manager said that UNICEF was concerned about the development of every child in our communities and especially, the girl child.
He said the development of girl children was very essential because they formed a significant proportion of the population, but that the goal of their development could not be fully attained if their boy counterparts were left out, because they both shared the same society.
“UNICEF is directly, always, concerned about the development of every child and in every community, the child is important. We mention the girl child two because they form a significant part of our population.
“We cannot help develop the boys alone and leave the girls out and if we are talking about the development too, we cannot leave out the boys because they will share the society together and remain together,” Mr Obeng-Kyereh said.
He said the SBC platform was a learning curve for community members to interact among themselves and adopt best practices that work for them and promote their development.
Madam Charity Batuure, the Regional Director of the Department of Gender, speaking at the forum, urged parents to live up to their responsibilities in providing social and health needs of their children, especially the girl child.
She further admonished parents to avoid encouraging their girl children from seeking financial assistance from men, who would not offer it for free, by not providing them with their basic sanitary needs.
She also admonished the girls to stay focused on their education and avoid living lives of misplaced priorities, adding that there were lots of opportunities for girls to leverage and thrive, unlike before.
“...to our girls, there are a lot of opportunities now unlike before for us to leverage on those opportunities to ensure that we attain our potentials to whatever level that we want to.
“I think for you the young girls, your problem is misplaced priority, instead of concentrating on your books and learning, you are looking up to a friend who has a smartphone…your parents haven’t got but that young man from ‘galamsey’ has…so he will ‘dump’ on you and give you the money for the phone,” Madam Batuure said.
The chief of the Kagu community, Naa Salifu Zakaria called on the community members to take their wards’ education seriously to ensure they grew to become better people than they were saying that, the social and behavioural change was not about bathing and dressing nicely but by ensuring every child is educated.
He, therefore, appealed for support in the areas of feeding and classroom blocks for the Kagu Basic School to ensure their children received a better education.
As part of the SBC interaction processes, the community members realized that large family sizes were affecting the quality of care and education that could be given to their children if the family sizes were small.
They thus resolved to adopt birth control measures to ensure they give birth to a small number of children who could be given proper care and guaranteed quality education.