Dakurah Rubby at Sankana Junior High School
Dakurah Rubby is from Sankana, a small rural community in the Upper West region, where many families(including her own) depend highly on agriculture and small-scale farming as their primary source of income. Dakurah is 14-years-old and the eldest girl in her family. Typically, she would have been withdrawn from school over her brothers to work for the household or the farm. Instead, she will be entering her final year of junior high school (JHS) in September, leading her closer to realizing her hopes of becoming a nurse one day. Dakurah is one of the 10,000 JHS girls from food-insecure communities benefitting from monthly take-home rations (8kg of cereals, 2 litres of oil and 1kg of iodized salt in each package) donated by the World Food Programme (WFP) over the past two years.
The Upper West region is one of the least developed areas in Ghana. Its population, along with the Upper East and Northern region, makes up 70 per cent of the 28.5 national poor living on one dollar US or less a day. Factors such as a low, or “lean”, production season (March- September) and susceptibilities to adverse weather conditions (floods and droughts) prevent abundant year-round harvests in the region, leaving many families unable to access sufficient and nutritious food or meet their other basic needs. For many, education is considered a luxury, and not a necessity when battling these realities. When sacrifices need to be made, it is most often the girls who bare more of the burdens.
Matilda Bannerman Mensah, head of the Girl Education Unit at the Ghana Education Services, adds , “there are also traditional socio-cultural practices that put preference on boys’ education rather than girls’.” According to Mensah, arranged and early marriage, female genital circumcision and bondage are degenerative practices that are still predominant (particularly in the deprived rural areas) and constitute some of the other barriers preventing a girl’s access to education.
Food assistance in the Upper West aims to alleviate the effects of poverty, hunger and malnutrition, and the inequalities such conditions can lead to. Therefore, WFP’s take-home ration programme not only provides an income transfer and food relief to girl recipients and their families, but encourages their equal access and regular participation in school. In order to qualify for the ration package, girls are obligated to attend school 85 per cent of each month. According to the WFP, girls’ retention rates have doubled to reach 99 per cent attendance, with significantly fewer girls dropping out of assisted schools and continuing to higher education. The programme gives many females the chance to receive an education and pursue their dreams; opportunities many of them in the rural areas normally do not have. Even families who maintain very traditional beliefs are beginning to see the importance in formally educating their girls. “Most parents know that they will benefit more by sending a girl to school,” says Rosalia Babai, the Upper West Regional Coordinator of the Girl Education Unit.
Male and Female Students at Sankana Junior High School
As helpful as it is, the programme is unfortunately in its final phase and is supposed to be replaced by the National School Feeding Programme by the end of the year. Vital programs such as school feeding, that help address basic human needs, and that improve people’s access to equal participation and opportunity in society are crucial to the development of the country. As the National Government aims to develop Ghana into a middle-income country (by reducing poverty and accelerating the country’s economy), it (together with development partners) will need to strengthen the systems supporting its people, particularly the youth, who make up 50 per cent of the country’s population- Ghana’s capable workforce and it’s future leaders. For the northern population, further social support is needed to alleviate the burdens of poverty and to allow people (young and old, male and female) to live dignified lives.