Interning at The African Women’s Development Fund

The question of social philanthropy has never failed to incite my curiosities about the nature of giving and the beneficiaries of economic growth. After being selected to intern at a Women’s organization in Ghana, the excitement of being able to juxtapose my passions with practice in a country like Ghana thrilled me.

As it stands, prior to attaining this internship, I have always been impassioned by issues regarding women. Hence once the opportunity to work directly with women and contribute to the work being done here presented itself, I immediately seized it. More specifically, I have been keen on issues regarding women and economic empowerment and the processes which hinder the wide presence of women in the private sector. My interests encouraged me to engage in initiatives that would better assist me in arriving to the root of discovering what hinders women from implementing their capabilities and securing continued financial growth. This, however I am soon beginning to realize brings into discussion a plethora of issues concerning education, the role of culture, and other inextricable concepts.

Prior to arriving to Ghana, I was completing my third year of college at Rutgers University located in NJ, USA. I received information about an internship in Ghana via a flyer advertised on behalf of the Center for African Studies and the Women’s and Gender studies department. The main contact person for this internship was Dr. Abena P.A. Busia who has played a large part in spearheading this internship for Rutgers students and establishing the infrastructure for the program. This has been the second year that the program has been institutionalized and I am very excited to be part of this initiative.

My interests in economic empowerment, access to education, laws governing African countries, have all led me to the issue of funding. Essentially all aforementioned issues deal with the question of funding at some point or another; how do we ensure the presence of schools, and social structures that will advance the overall development of a people? Likewise how can we promote awareness about economic empowerment to women of Africa? Such initiatives require the establishment of programs or institutions that will properly meet the needs of the people in discussion. Indeed this question like many others when it comes to the collective benefit of a nation or group of people is no easy undertaking. Such institutions however, require ‘investments’, sponsors, and people who are willing to commit to the ideals and vision of the institution or organization so as to develop a strong foundation likely to ensure the linear growth of such organizations.

What then began to appeal to me more, was the science inherent in the process of funding and how this translates to empowering the recipients’ of aid. The idea of social philanthropy began to become more appealing to me as I began to reflect on the way in which aid is given to Africa and how institutions are upheld or rather why they become obsolete as a result of funding. This begged the question of whether the funding which organizations are endowed with encourages self-reliance; does this funding encourage capacity building?

After discussing more of the placement options I would have once the two interns and I would have arrived to Ghana, Dr. Busia steered me towards the African Women’s Development Fund which I was happy to learn, encouraged the capacity building I had set out to learn more about. I was pleased to learn about the strategic ways in which funding was established by the AWDF so as to foster the type of social philanthropy that will enable institutions and organizations seeking assistance to remain strong without the presence of funds provided by the African Women’s Development Fund. To this extent, the African Women Development Fund does more than endow, they create a cyclic process which will enable women and their organizations to remain self sustained thereby empowering and promoting such like programs which spread awareness across the continent of Africa about issues which threaten the progress of women’s rights in Africa. Within this structure, African Women’s Development Fund addresses an issue which many institutions fail to even acknowledge; how to negotiate the incorporation of endowing a program in addition to empowering and more importantly educating its recipients. In addition to providing economic assistance, the AWDF also endows its recipients with knowledge of key concepts in finance and business that they often have the displeasure of not being aware of due to their exclusion from the private sector/business field.

I’m excited for my upcoming projects and I’ll keep all updated!

Much thanks for your time.
Hawwa Muhammad
Bachelor of Arts, Political Science
Rutgers University Intern