Ms. Adjoa Thérèse AKAKPO, President of IAW associate La Colombe in Togo, is among the 10 winners of the Prize of Women’s Creativity in Rural Life – 2019 organized by the Women’s World Summit Foundation based in Geneva.
In the 2019 Prize Brochure she is presented in the following way:
Adjoe Akabo is a pioneer of the organization of women in her country where she founded in 1990 the “Women’s association La Colombe” (The Dove) to bring immediate effective solutions to the different challenges faced by rural women: food insecurity, poverty, major health issues, illiteracy, sexual violence and sexism,the high school drop-out rate among young girls, lack of access to land, hence to credit, i.e. financial dependency on the men. In the year 2000, Adjoa gives up the security of her teaching job to devote herself entirely to her work with women and young girls. A training center for women had been opened in 1997 in the town of Vo Koutime. Over 700 girls and young women victims of various forms of violence and sexual exploitation have been trained there in a variety of fields such as dressmaking, hairdressers, cooking,dying and others. Alongside these areas, all the students received additional training in basic notions of entrepreneurship, leadership, literacy, etc. Parallel to this training, the traditional village chieftains were informed and sensitized to the rights of women in terms of land ownership and inheritance laws.
Her work contributes to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals-Agenda 2030 Target #1, #2, #4 & #5