Daily Graphic, Pg. 11. Sat. Jan 30/10
Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
MANY women in various parts of the world and Ghana in particular continue to work hard daily to uplift the image of womanhood and society at large.
One such woman is Mrs Janet Adama Mohammed, who was recently awarded the 2010 Martin Luther King Jr. award for Peace and Social Justice by the U.S Embassy.
In 2009, Mrs Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, the Executive Director of the Ark Foundation, Ghana, was the proud recipient of the award, which is aimed at recognising Ghanaians who personify the philosophy and actions of Dr Martin Luther King Jr by helping to build a culture of peacemaking, dialogue and conflict resolution. It also honours activists who have promoted social justice, stability, human rights and peace through non-violent means.
Mrs Mohammed’s award was in recognition of her 20 years of work in peace building and emergency response to local and regional conflicts.
She is currently the Director, Human Rights and Democratisation Programme, IBIS West Africa , a Danish non-governmental organisation (NGO) in West Africa. She joined IBIS in 2006.
She holds a degree in Geography and a Diploma in Education from the University of Cape Coast, a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Extension, Rural Development from Reading University, UK, and a Post-graduate Qualifying Diploma in Management from the Institute of Professional Management Association, also in the UK.
She has provided leadership training in 19 African countries, UK, Jordan and Egypt and in 2006, she was selected by the American Embassy to participate in the International Visitor Leadership Programme on Conflict Resolution and Peace Building.
Mrs Mohammed has devoted herself to the resolution of political and religious conflicts in Ghana's Northern Region by mobilising the youth, women, farmers, elders and chiefs to create a sustainable peace through dialogue and mutual understanding.
Following training she acquired as a process-oriented facilitator in an Inter Action Leadership Programme, Mrs Mohammed has encouraged recognition, appreciation, and communication among disparate groups to create and share hope and, by so doing, helped to bridge the gap among prison, immigration officials, the military, police, and security forces to improve their relationship in the communities they serve in the northern sector.
A native of Siniesa, near Sandama??? in the Upper East Region, Mrs Mohammed was raised in the Catholic faith. She married Prince Mohammed Mahama, a Muslim, and they have three children.
Mrs Mohammed said she started work as a high school tutor, teaching Geography in the Tamale Secondary School in Northern Ghana from 1987 to 1993.
“While a teacher, I took interest in the students at their individual levels to offer them hope and support them build confidence to make the best of their time in school. This was particularly so with the girls and I instituted the Moral Talk Sessions,” she said.
She later joined the Christian Council of Ghana in June 1993 as a training co-ordinator and later became the Director for the Northern Sector Office.
“Here I worked in the communities and built relevant relationships with colleagues in civil society organisations and NGOs, women’s groups, the youth and elders, religious bodies, both Christian and Islamic,” she said.
She also introduced the inter-faith dialogue for peaceful co-existence among the youth, women and elders, stressing that her favourite work was with school peace clubs, where the children gathered confidence to talk at the elders forums about peace through role plays, debate sessions, songs and poems.
She said during the 1994-95 conflict in the Northern Region, she joined the team of NGOs that searched and mobilised emergency support for the conflict victims, while advocating strategic government intervention. In addition to emergency response, she also worked to mobilise groups from communities to engage in conflict resolution.
According to Mrs Mohammed, an interesting part of her work was with the security forces, “whom we provided re-orientation to combine peacekeeping with peace-building. I have organised several peace-building training sessions to contribute to people’s capacities to engage themselves and others in peace building in the communities,”
To enable her gain additional impetus to her work, Mrs Mohammed said, “I learnt and shared knowledge from the British Council's InterAction Leadership Programme, which gave me another perspective to peace-building that creates hope and confidence in people in difficult situations”.
She also learnt different approaches to peace-building, community initiatives and social justice from the American State Visitor's Programme on Conflict Resolution in 2006.
She said the peace-building journey had not been an easy one, stressing that “sometimes I pause to ask myself if I was making any impact. And anytime there was a grim of success, it wiped off all my doubts and that energised me to continue to work harder”.
She thanked the organisations which gave her the opportunity to serve - the Christian Council of Ghana and IBIS West Africa. “Sometimes I did not belong to just one organisation but to platforms and coalitions, and yet my organisations continued to provide space and support for me to be able to perform. I am grateful to them,” she added.
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