By Precious D. Freeman
The West Point Women For Health And Development Organization (WPWHDO) yesterday celebrated the International Day Of Girl Child.
The program which was held at West Point brought together several organization members and girls from different communities such as the Township of West Point, Slipway Community, Clara Town Community, Central Monrovia among others, who came to acquire knowledge about the importance of girls in the society.
The Project is being supported by Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) through Kvinna Till Kvinna to WPWHDO with the theme: Digital Generation, Our Generation.
Speaking during the occasion, the Executive Director for WPWHDO, Nelly S. Cooper said that the United Nations General Assembly on December 19, 2011, passed a resolution declaring the day as the International Day of The Girl Child.
According to her, this day primarily focuses on the necessity to acknowledge the challenges that girls face around the world and to empower them towards fulfilling their human rights.
She added that the occasion marks the importance of adolescent girls’ children and attempts at identifying their power and potential by opening opportunities for them.
“Through observing this day, an attempt is made to talk about and eradicate the issues concerning adolescent girl children, throughout the world; girls face gender-based challenges including child marriages, discrimination, violence and poor learning opportunities,” she mentioned.
She indicated that women are not supposed to be left behind anymore, and that they are now working side by side with men, especially in the age of digital revolution where people are using technology in various ways to learn new skills and earn revenue; women and girls cannot be left behind.
She explained that the pandemic has made the world sit in front of laptop\mobile screen for learning and earning, around 2.2 billion people around the globe still do not have internet connections, whereby this has made them been pushed off the margins, especially the girls, on a global level, and the gender gap of internet user’s girls has been left behind.
Madam Copper furthered that gone are those days when girls’ voices are not allowed to be heard in the society. She is at the same time advising all girls to focus on their studies, adding that it is the only way they can be respected in the society.
She is at the same time stressing on the importance of education, adding that education matters a lot for them to become a great person in the future, adding that being a wayward person does not represent a girl.
West Point Women for Health and Development Organization (WPWHDO) is a registered non-for-profit organization and accredited by the government of Liberia.
It was founded on July 16, 2002, as a local women and children’s rights advocacy organization, which was established during the time of the Liberian civil war when the rights of women and children were being grossly abused.
The West Point saw the act of abuse against women as a human rights violation and was totally against it, so ten women converged and with one accord encouraged each other to join forces in establishing women-led and children’s rights advocacy organization to advocate for the rights of women, girls and children who were victims of SGBV and DV.