Savana Signatures launches new programme

The Savana Signatures (SAVSIGN), a Tamale-based NGO has launched “The World Starts With Me (WSWM),” a computer-based programme in sexual and reproductive health and rights education for young people to change their attitudes.

The WSWM is a unique and innovative programme piloted by SAVSIGN in 2014, which is a complete digital sexual and reproductive health and rights curriculum, developed for young people in an in-school and out-of-school setting in some schools in the Northern, Upper East, Upper West and the Volta Regions.

Alhaji Mohammed Haroun Cambodia, Northern Regional Director of Education, who launched the programme in Tamale on Thursday stressed the importance of the programme, which could help fight the female gender violence in schools.

He said some teachers were abusing ignorant female teenagers during lessons by jokingly touching their sensitive parts, which sometimes put innocent and unsuspecting girls in sexual moods for the teachers to lure them into sex later.

He said some of the girls who often refused sexual demands from teachers were severely punished, saying, “When the teacher is giving group caning, I mean days when caning was allowed, you will see the teacher raising the cane higher when he gets to the targeted girl who is adamant to give him sex, which sets in the female gender violence am talking about”.

He commended SAVSIGN for the role they were playing to help the youth through the use of ICT to liberate themselves, and expressed the hope that the WSWM programme would help educate female pupils and students about the attitude of crafty teachers who played on the innocence of teenage girls.

He said the Ghana Education Service wanted children to survive and stay in school to develop their future, but not to drop out of school, and described the programme as a laudable intervention, which should be extended to cover many schools for the desired change.

Mr Imoro Abdul-Rashid, Senior Projects Officer of SAVSIGN, said the WSWM was operating in more than 10 countries in Africa and Asia, and that the programme aimed at both school-going young people and early school leavers.

He said the WSWM combined building IT-skills and creative expression and aimed to contribute not only to the improvement of the sexual and reproductive health of young people, but also to their social and economic development.

Mr John Stephen Agbenyo, Executive Director of SAVSIGN, said his outfit would continue to roll out ICT-based programmes and projects that would benefit the generality of Ghanaians, especially young people, to develop them.