Men in Nanumba Districts Recognise Women's Roles

Men in the Nanumba North District of the Northern Region of Ghana have now learned to appreciate the positive role women play in carrying out household chores also referred to as unpaid care work, and pledged henceforth to assist women carryout such responsibilities without any feeling of resentment.

How amazing it would be to see a man abandon his cherished traditional beliefs particularly in an area such as Northern Ghana, to engage in what is clearly defined as ‘women’s work’. This is because, in a typical Northern Ghanaian community, it is considered a taboo for men to assist their women or wives in household chores.

But with the implantation of the “Women's Right to Sustainable Livelihoods”, an initiative by ActionAid-Ghana, an international non-governmental organisation and its local partner Songtaba in the Nanumba North District, aimed at changing the belief that unpaid care work was primarily the responsibility of women and girls, some men were beginning to have a change of both heart and mind.

Mr. Yakubu Abukari, a 40 year old peasant farmer in Nasamba stated in an interview with Savannahnews that, there was the need for men to begin to support women and not to see women’s role as not valuable as men's contribution through paid work and demanded acknowledgment of its value from communities and local leaders.

According to him, it was joy when he was sensitized by the two NGOs to appreciate how important it was to assist his wife in household chores. “When I heard that, it was happiness because I hardly consult my wife when it comes to the sale of my tubers of yam and other farm produce. But now, we plan everything together. I never knew that a man is supposed to help his wife in household chores but when they intervened and taught us the need for men and women to complement each other’s roles because there is no disparity between a man and a woman, hence the need to assist each other has really helped us,” Mr. Abukari testified.

Madam Rukaya Yakubu, a petty trader and house wife, on her part outlined the assistance ActionAid and Songtaba had provided to the Nasamba community. “We were there and they came. We didn’t have money, they told us they want to help us to go into farming, so that we can be farming small small, and they give us money to be doing small small so that we can take care of our children. We were doomed and lacked experience, today the children when they are going to school we get small money for them to go school.” 

Meanwhile, the project had since provided assistance to some 1,796 women in various groupings in land ploughing, seeds, inputs and technical advice to enable them to be economically empowered through farming.