Madam Charity Bature (with microphone), addressing the community members

The Upper West Regional Director of the De­partment of Gender, Madam Charity Bature, has called on parents to take responsibility for their wards to help prevent teenage pregnan­cy and school dropout.

She said parents were responsible for providing for their children in terms of food, clothing, and shelter; however, some parents rather encour­aged their wards to go outside and provide for themselves, which in some cases leads to teen­age pregnancy.

Madam Charity Bature made the call at a com­munity engagement on Social and Behavioural Change (SBC) organised by the Club of Children and Youth in Broadcasting (CYIB-Curious Minds) in partnership with Ghana Broadcasting Corpora­tion (GBC) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Funds (UNICEF) at Kagu in the Wa Municipality.

She said the high increase in school dropouts was worrying, and parents needed to take action to ensure children became responsible as they grew.

Madam Charity Bature urged parents and com­munity leaders to encourage their pregnant girls to go back to school after delivery to carve a better future for themselves and their babies.

“Let’s own up to our responsibilities as parents and train our children to become successful in the future. We need to have time to educate our girl child at home. When you have no time for the child, the child becomes infl uenced by peers and, in the end, becomes pregnant and a school dropout,” she said.

She stressed the need for parents to desist from marrying off their children and rather provide them with education and also protect them from early sex.

She encouraged young people, especially women and children, to speak up on issues that affected them.

She advised girls in the community to take their education very seriously and urged the chiefs to strengthen measures to curb the menace of school dropouts.

The Project Coordinator of CYIB-Curious Minds, Mr. Kingsley Obeng-Kyereh, said the engagement sought to create a platform to interact with chil­dren, parents, and community leaders to under­stand their challenges and also educate them on the need to be responsible for their children.

He said the best role model for a child was the parents, and he urged parents to live an exem­plary life for their wards to emulate.

Mr. Kingsley Obeng-Kyereh said lack of parental care for children was one of the causes of teen­age pregnancies and child marriage and encour­aged parents to double their efforts in catering for their children to help curb the situation.

He said Curious Minds sought to ensure that children and youth were well informed and par­ticipated in decision-making on issues affecting them by sharing information, building partner­ships, and generating knowledge.

 From Rafia Abdul Razak, Wa