Ghana: Zoomlion Gives Women Opportunity
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Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)
17 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008
Stephen Odoi Larbi
As part of plans to provide equal opportunities for both males and females on the job market, Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a leading private waste management company has upgraded the skills of twenty-five of its employees (all women) on how to handle heavy duty trucks and earthmoving equipments in their operations.
The initiative, christened 'The Zoom Captains' sought to give women the opportunity to not only earn higher salaries but also break the myth surrounding male dominance in driving heavy duty equipment and to bring gender equity in the allocation of jobs.
It also sought to help build women role models for younger women to learn from, improve economic conditions of the whole family unit and contribute to minimise casualties on the country's roads.
The program, which started early this year, enabled thirty female motor riders from the company, three from each of the ten regions in the country, who underwent six months of rigorous training in the operations of heavy duty trucks and earth moving equipment.
Out of the thirty selected females, twenty-five were able to sail through successfully and have been duly registered by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA).
Addressing the gathering at the launch of the 'The Zoom Captains' in Accra on Wednesday, First Lady, Mrs. Theresa Kufuor lauded Zoomlion for its innovation in empowering women in society to compete favourably with their male counterparts on the job market.
She stressed that the initiative by the company has changed the fortunes of women in the country in their quest for jobs on the market to improve their living conditions.
"This pleases me because what this means is that Ghanaians are not left out in the global agitation to improve the living conditions of women worldwide. Gone are the days when women were proud home makers, producing children and taking care of them", she said.
She added "women today are expected to have careers and specialised skills to enable them fend for themselves and their dependants and to compete with their male counterparts effectively".
According to her, women who have no jobs and income sometimes live under deplorable conditions in our part of the world and were not recognised by society, even when they have good contributions to make.
She thus appealed to all privately owned companies and civil society groups to assist government and the people of Ghana in the quest to sustain the gains made in poverty reduction and further improve upon it.
On her part, the General Manager of Zoomlion, Florence Larbi commended the twenty-five trainees for successfully completing the programme and urged them to comport themselves in the discharge of their duties.
According to her, past experience have shown that, contrary to some public perceptions, women excelled very well in fields dominated by their male counterparts, hence the need to give them the necessary support.
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"Our experience has shown that, contrary to some public perceptions, women possess the courage, strength, sense of purpose and tenacity to rub shoulders with their male counterparts in jobs which traditionally were perceived to be the exclusive domain of men, like the operation of heavy duty trucks and earthmoving and or construction equipment. This has dispelled the above wrongly held notion on the capacity of women", she noted.
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