Anglogold Ashanti begins financial literacy awareness program for women

It has become difficult to fathom an equal world without empowering women with equal social and economic opportunities. Making women financially literate is one of the most important areas.

AngloGold Ashanti Obuasi Mine has taken it upon itself to educate women in its operational areas in basic financial management to boost the financial performance of their businesses and enhance entrepreneurship in Obuasi.

According to Mavis Nana Yaa Kyei, the Social Development and Gender Superintendent of AngloGold Ashanti, strengthening the competencies of women in all sectors of the economy was critical to ensure inclusive development agenda and making the communities where AGA operate better off.

Speaking at the sidelines of the end of a 2-day financial literacy training for the first cohort of 60 women in Obuasi, she said the mining company sees women as a group who needs to be empowered in the quest of ensuring attaining equity in all spheres.

She emphasized that the training program is targeted at empowering over 400 women for the year 2022 the knowledge of managing their finances and taking the right financial decisions as far as their businesses are concerned.

” Once you want to empower women, you just don’t have to empower them socially but economically to enable them make definitive decisions about their finances to ensure sustainable business growth “.

She revealed that the company through it Enterprise Development and Skills Development Program realized  that out of the 200 application received less than 20 % were women  with limited  Documentation on basic knowledge regarding their inflows and outflows which had denied some the opportunity to be part of the Business Development Program organised by AGAG and  implemented  by  Invest in Africa  ,  the company decided to step in to bridge the gap by giving women  training to build their banking and book keeping skills.

Mrs.Kyei affirmed that the program will run on a monthly basis and will capture areas such as, Financial Planning and Financial decision making for micro/small business, Manual Book-Keeping ,Calculation skills- using calculator for transactions, Building a positive banking habit and  Knowledge on the types of Accounts available to micro-businesses (savings, current, fixed deposit).

Madam Vivian Elsie Obeng, a participant of the program lauded AngloGold Ashanti for the program. She disclosed that the program has been an eye opener and will enable her to depart from her old ways of doing business without keeping proper records of her Finances.

” it has always been my aim as a distributor of bottled water to work with big institutions like AGA. With the knowledge gained in bookkeeping and how to invest for the future, I will be well placed to work with them hopefully”. She added with a big smile.

Madam Cynthia Mba who is physically challenged also talked about the impact of the training program. She admonished women in Obuasi, regardless of their situation to take advantage of the program to boost their knowledge of managing the inflows and outflows of their businesses effectively.