The College for Ama (CofA) Foundation's Seventh Summer Training Camp for Rural Girls, during which 40 basic school girls from the Greater Accra, Volta and Eastern Regions were empowered for three weeks has ended in Accra.

This Year’s camp held from the July 25 to August 15 at the University of Ghana was on the theme: “Investing in rural girl education to break the cycle of poverty and underachievement among girls in rural areas”.

The CofA, a registered charity organization which was established in 2005 by Prof Nana Araba Apt, Dean Emerita, Academic Affairs, Ashesi University College, Helen Lydia Bedwei, a businesswoman and entrepreneur and Afua Eyeson, a legal practitioner seeks to help girls in rural areas to break out of the spiral of poverty and underdevelopment.

The organization has trained over 200 rural girls from the Central, Western, Greater Accra, Volta and Eastern regions at its Summer Camps which aims at raising the consciousness of the girls and exposing them to intensive training and efficient ways of learning.

Prof Apt in her closing remarks on Thursday said during the camp, the girls received tuition in Mathematics, English Language, Science, Adolescent sexual and reproductive health, nutrition, creative arts, first aid, martial arts, information and communications technology, communication and life skills and other motivational and self-esteem programmes.

Prof Apt said “the real impact of the programme will become evident this year when we expect to see at least 10 CofA girls passing the 2014 WASSCE exams and entering tertiary institutions next year. We expect to see fewer teenage pregnancies and a lower school dropout rate among CofA girls.”

She said the mission of CofA was to provide creative and educational opportunities for adolescent girls in rural areas of Ghana to attain college education.

According to her, the organization believed that access to information and education empowered individuals, their families and communities to make better life decisions, thus becoming more independent and achieving a better quality of life.

She urged the government, civil society organizations, cooperate Ghana, benevolent individuals and parents to help promote the girl child education.

Mrs Bedwei expressed gratitude to the Management of the Volta Hall of the University of Ghana for hosting them at no cost over the past seven years.

She also thanked other benevolent organizations and individuals such as Maquis Tante Marie Restaurant, The Basement Restaurant, Amelia Addison, Kwami Williams, Venus Evans-Winter, Casla Denizel, and Nancy Douot, for their kind support which has enabled the CofA to come this far.

At the closing ceremony two former students and beneficiaries of the programme Eunice Owu and Bernice Dei Kumi graduates of Mfantsiman Senior High School and Shama Senior High School respectively expressed their gratitude to CofA for the support given them and their contemporaries in realizing their dreams.

Ms Rhoda Bannerman, a student of the Pokuase Municipal Assembly Junior High School in the Ga-West Municipality told the Ghana News Agency that the programme had made her to love and understand science and mathematics better.

Each student was given a certificate of participation.