News
‘Prioritise menstrual health education in schools’
Ms Nkrumah Abamfo(squatting) in a pose with some school girls and organisers
Menstrual health education must be prioritised in schools to ensure young girls are well-informed to promote menstrual hygiene, the Administrative Assistant, For The Future Ghana (FTF Ghana), Maame Esi Nkrumah Abamfo, has said.
And to ensure proper feminine hygiene in Ghana, especially among deprived girls, she added it was essential to promote access to sanitary products and provide facilities for proper sanitation.
“Removing taxes on these essential products can help make them more affordable and accessible to all, promote better menstrual hygiene practices and overall well-being among girls and women,” she stressed.
She was optimistic that advocacies towards improving access and affordability for girls and women in the country would yield results.
As part of their Empower Her Menstrual Health Initiative, FTF Ghana donated 100 feminine hygiene products to 100 students at Bishop Girls Basic School at Accra Central (Makola).
The group also used the occasion to discuss menstrual health issues with the participants while engaging them in very relevant challenges young girls faced during such period.
They also held discussions on mental health and wellness while encouraging young girls to strive to achieve greater things and contribute to national development.
The initiative, she said, would continue throughout the year as 1000s of sanitary pads would be needed to support young girls especially in rural areas.
Sharing light on that, the FTF Ghana Founder, Kezia Sanie said, “many women and girls in the rural areas we visited still resort to using cloths and tissue paper during their periods in 2024. Adolescent girls shared how they had to skip school and perform chores, like fetching water, to earn money for sanitary pads. This severely impacts their school attendance and education.”
“To help in our own little way, we distributed over 27,000 sanitary pads to keep the girls in school for a year. However, we are far from solving the issue of period poverty and the lack of comprehensive menstrual education,” she stressed.
By Michael D. Abayateye
News
Swallowed by the Sea! …Keta’s coastal lines, landmarks, efforts to preserve heritage
The Atlantic Ocean is no longer a distant blue horizon for the people of Keta.
It now circles around their doorsteps, uninvited, unrelenting, pulling down walls and other structures, erasing memories, and threatening lives.
Hovering precariously between the restless sea and the Keta Lagoon, this once-thriving coastal town is slowly being obliterated.
Salt water has become both a physical and metaphorical threat, dissolving the town’s past as fast as it claims its future.
Madam Aku Atitso, 62, lives in a crumbling former Prisons Service quarters – one of the few structures still standing on the eroded stretch of Queen Street.
She sits quietly at the entrance, preparing a modest breakfast for herself and her granddaughter.
The air is thick with salt and silence. “The sea took everything,” she says softly. “My husband’s nets, our mattress, our memories all gone overnight.” Her voice trembles. “This place too is dying. But it’s the last place with a roof over my head.”
A few metres away, Aunty Esinam, 79, watches the sea from a low stool beside a wooden shelter. Her eyes do not blink. “That spot,” she points, “used to be someone’s living room, a whole family lived there”.
It’s not just homes that are vanishing. Landmarks that anchored Keta’s cultural identity are disappearing one after another. The once-imposing Fort Prinzenstein, a haunting relic of the transatlantic slave trade is now more of a ruin than a monument.
the encroaching waters along Keta’s
coast.
encroaching waters along Keta’s coast
The colonial-era Bremen factory, the old cinema where generations of children once laughed at flickering black-and-white films is also gone.
Queen Street, once the town’s bustling backbone, is now a watery corridor choked with debris.
Standing atop a section of the sea defence wall, 69-year-old retired teacher Efo Kwasi Agbeko surveys what remains.
“The first police station is mostly gone,” he says, gesturing part of the building stuck in the sea sand, only ruins and a few rooms remain.
“This town is fighting, but the sea is winning,” he said.
Even the Cape St. Paul Lighthouse, Keta’s historic sentinel, leans perilously toward the water, and fishermen say holes in the shore are opening more frequently, sometimes every week.
That leaves a thick cloud of uncertainty hanging around the historic town of Keta.
Once upon a time, it was a vibrant town noted for business but currently left with ruins with a few of the residents watching in awe the sea’s devastation.
From: Geoffrey Kwame Buta, Keta, Volta Region
News
Ghanaians climax Easter with fun-filled activities
Christians around the world and other faith based groups last Monday climaxed the Easter celebration with a number of fun-filled outdoor and indoor activities.
With streets empty, fun seekers stormed church premises where picnics were held while others partied in many ways.
Others spent the day at the various beaches and music and film shows occupying the others.
velleyball competition
at the Laboma Beach
Church in Tema Community 8 engaged
in a number of activities including the
popular draught competition
At the churches, participants engaged in bible reading, football, volleyball, playing cards, table tennis, horse racing, bouncing castles, swimming and oware.
one of the picnic venues
Others played ludo, tag of war, lime and spoon, draught, music competitions among others.
The Spectator captured some of the exciting scenes around Accra-Tema for the benefit of readers.
Story & pictures by Victor A. Buxton
