The Wa Polytechnic has organized a three-day seminar for female students of the polytechnic and selected Senior High Schools in the Upper West Region on gender marketing, with special focus on demystifying science and technical education among girls. The seminar was a follow-up to a Gender Recruitment and Marketing workshop organized in February this year with technical assistance from the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology and funding from Canada International Development Assistance (CIDA). To encourage female students to study science and technology and undertake entrepreneurial ventures, Miss Lucy Omuga, an Electrical Engineer by profession and a successful entrepreneur from Kenya was invited to serve as a role model and share her experiences with the girls. She advised the girls to adopt a positive attitude to life and take advantages of the opportunities offered in their institutions to learn hard to become respectable people in the society. “If you are well educated, you become important in your family, your community and your nation”, she stated. Recounting her experiences as a child, she said even though she hailed from poor back ground she never gave up on her goals in life and that had brought her to this level. Miss Omuga advised the girls not see Science subjects especially Mathematics as being difficult and therefore the preserve for boys. Mrs Annacleta Naab, Upper West Regional Director of the Department of Children, who spoke on “child trafficking”, said this illegal business was being undertaken in the region with the connivance of irresponsible parents. She narrated an incident in August 2006 when 89 children from the Lawra and Jirapa Districts, who were intercepted at Wa, when they were being trafficked to the Brong-Ahafo region, later turned out to have had the blessing of their (girls) parents. Source: GNA