A women empowerment advocate, Hajia Nadia Alhassan, has appealed to individuals and corporate institutions to support the government alleviate poverty among widows in rural Ghana.
According to her poor widows and their children were more vulnerable, adding that many cases of juvenile delinquency and crime among adults could be linked to hunger and drug abuse.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghanaian Times yesterday, she mentioned that the government could not solely address all the problems within the country with support from the citizenry,therefore, much attention must be directed at improving upon the lives of the most vulnerable in the country.
She bemoaned that extreme poverty was a threat to national security, stressing that it would not be easy to reduce the high rate of criminal activities in any given area without first tackling its cause, which could be high rate of unemployment resulting in poverty.
“Both past and present government‘s through various initiatives, have tried in diverse ways to support widows, the disabled and orphans but due to the country’s economic challenges, reaching a satisfactory number of vulnerable people was not possible so if individuals and NGOs and do more with focus on widows and children in poverty stricken areas, it would go a long way in improving the situation,” she added.
Hajia Nadia, who doubles as the Founder of Nadisco Foundation, an NGO focused on poverty alleviation among women and children, indicated that it was also very important for women to strive for the best no matter the situation they found themselves in order to make ends meet and also to support and protect their children.
Describing the loss of a husband as an unpleasant experience, she noted that the death of one’s husband did not mean an end to life, therefore rural dwellers, especially, should desist from discrimination against widows due to some myths, saying “the period a woman mourns her husband must be a period she is supposed to receive more love from loved ones and the community at large and not the other way round.”
Hajia Nadia revealed that her outfit had undertaken various projects to provide skills training to widows in hard to reach areas within Ghana and some urban areas within the country, adding that such moves had gone a long way to improve upon the living conditions of some widows who were beneficiaries of Nadisco Foundation’s generous acts.
“Through my efforts alone, with support from my donors, we have touched many lives so imagine the impact that will be made if we have more NGOs joining the rest of us focusing on vulnerable widows and their children.”
“The country cannot see massive transformation if the welfare of women and children are not prioritised,” she added.
BY RAISSA SAMBOU
