Workin' Girl

Where I work

WiLDAF is dedicated to promoting and strengthening strategies that link law and development to increase women’s participation and influence. Being exposed to—and involved in—WiLDAF’s work, I will be able to see how these interests intersect and complement each other. As I struggle to figure out what the heck to do with myself long-term, the connections between human rights, development, and peace studies interest and confuse me even more. Recently I signed up to take the Foreign Service Exam in April, just to see where that might lead (that would allow me to be abroad, with a good salary, but less likely to be helping people who actually need it).

But back to WiLDAF. WiLDAF-Ghana employs a rights-based approach in its legal and development work. Its priority issues are: fostering rights awareness and action, advocating law and policy reform, access to and control over economic resources and confronting violence against women. Having identified ignorance as one of the factors that hinder the development of women, WiLDAF-Ghana has embarked on a rights awareness program and offers legal counseling at its field offices. WiLDAF-Ghana has trained over four hundred leaders of grassroots organizations on legal education and leadership skills since 1993 when it began. This training has equipped women leaders with the basic knowledge and skills to enable them to further train their members and communities to make use of laws, specifically relating to intestate succession, marriage and divorce laws, wills and maintenance of children. In 2004 alone, over 1,600 communities benefited from educational workshops. In addition to legal counseling, training and capacity building, WiLDAF-Ghana engages in research, advocacy, and networking activities focused on promoting women’s rights.

Most of the hands-on work is done at the field offices in Ho and Takoradi, which I plan to visit.

So, what do I do?

I was immediately put to work writing a funding proposal for a workshop; I attended a meeting on the December elections (which, incidentally, revealed that Ghana’s two political parties have a solid base of support from two very different demographic groups. The winning NPP is the party of the non-poor, literate, urban, educated, Akan-ethnic group. The NDC is more favored by the poor, illiterate, and rural). I am also in charge of updating the website, but can’t do that till our computer guy brings me the proper program to use!

Monday afternoon I was told that I should make a powerpoint presentation for a reception for Ghanaian female parliamentarians for the next day. The problem was that our office lost power…again. In my two weeks here, it’s happened at least 4 or 5 times. Not only does that mean computer work can’t happen, it means the air conditioner doesn’t work. Ugh. Luckily, Tuesday morning the power was working (though it went out in the afternoon) and I churned out a powerpoint full of images of African women to cycle through during the event. I also did research for a speech and outlined another speech. [I found out that Rwanda’s parliament has the highest representation of women in the world, with 48.8%! The US was ranked 57^th, with about 15% female representation, if my memory serves me. That’s behind South Africa, Namibia, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Senegal, to name a few. A lot of African countries are establishing quota systems (at 30%) at either the government or party level.]

The reception was held at one of the nicest hotels here in Accra, La Palm. There were decorations, a band, and a drink-serving station in the terrace area. The invitations had said 5 pm…no one came till 6 pm! After some speeches, the band started playing…and the politicians actually danced! It was amazing and refreshing to see politicians who just seemed to be normal, real people.

Observation: everyone in our office seems to whisper when they’re on the phone…and I can never hear them say good-bye, though they claim they do (or else thank you). When someone visits our office, they also whisper. But my colleagues don’t whisper to each other or to me generally. Just when it comes to dealing with others who are not working at our office…

Justice (from the Takoradi office), Marian, Solomon, Akosua, and yours truly! Last night at the celebration for female parliamentarians.