Ghanaian wins €30,000 grant to champion reproductive health rights

Ghana’s Edith Asamani, an adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights campaigner, was a shining star at the just ended Women Deliver Conference, beating 5 other contenders to win a 30,000 Euro grant meant for a national advocacy to end sexual and gender based violence.

The competition was one of the highlight moments at the world’s largest meeting gender and women’s rights activists in the Canadian city of Vancouver.

Edith, working with the African Youth and Adolescents Network (AFriYAN) Ghana chapter, wowed a judging panel drawn from the African Women Development Fund and the Global Fund for Women and Women Deliver with their pitch which seeks to end sexual abuse in Ghana using stories of victims told in their own language.

There were four other pitches. One seeking to fight obstetric fistula in Kenya, another on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Nigeria, child marriage in Nigeria and a final one on teenage pregnancy in Uganda.

AfriYAN Ghana is the local chapter of the African Youth and Adolescents’ Network on Population and Development. It is a network of youth-led and youth-focused organizations working on various population and development issues in the country including health, education, governance, youth leadership and participation among other thematic areas

“This grant provides AfriYAN Ghana an opportunity to strengthen movement building in Ghana, and for a worthy cause – reducing sexual harassment and assault, and sexual and gender-based violence generally,” Edith says.

With close to twenty years of work in child/ human rights advocacy, Edith thinks this is the time to scale up her work on a national level on an issue that is largely swept under the carpet.

“It affords an opportunity for a youth-led network to lead change; to prevent the vilification of survivors and seek justice for them, and to break social norms that make sexual harassment and assault seem okay.”

Source: Myjoyonline.com