Women in the Media
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TINA AFORO-YEBOAH

Tina Aforo-Yeboah, edits and plans the Regional Diary of the New Ghanaian Times newspaper. She is 48 years, comes from Adukrom but born in Tarkwa and a Presbyterian. She enjoyed featuring the women and children's issues in the Evening News of the Spectator. She was part of the women’s groups who demonstrated against the serial killing of women in 1996, Ghana.

She had her worst experience when her brother, together with Mawuli Goka, Yaw Brefo, Kyeremeh Djan, Samuel Boamah Panyin etc. were executed for treason during the PNDC era in 1986, two days to writing her diploma in journalism and was pregnant with her second child, but she was not shaken, she pressed on.

She has achieved a lot by traveling wide and has a lot of exposure as a result. She won awards on articles she wrote on women and children and has had mention of honors for features on the environment. She also had a fellowship award in Cape Town for seven months and another award at the institute of justice and reconciliation headquarters in the United States of America.

Her achievements were not chalked on a silver platter as she had challenges. It was around the same time she started with her features on women and children issues in the spectator that another Newspaper started doing same. This divided her audience, which really affected her.

The change of governments sometimes come with the change of Editors. Editors come in with their own policies, which sometimes affect certain columns and even pages. There have been times when certain sections are changed and columns removed due to new editorial policies.

Her love for what she does urges her on. Her family i.e. husband and children are a great inspiration to her as well. She is so much inspired when her readers brand her as successful and when she sees people’s lives are being impacted by her work. She is commended by her readership through calls and rejoinders.

She hopes to give her children the best of education.

Her opinion on the women’s quota system is that women should rather stand on their own to be voted into decision-making bodies in the country. Which means a lot of education must go on especially at the grassroots for them to understand issues of governance at the lowest level in order to get women of substance, not people with high academic laurels but those who play their role very well as social workers and are ready to help build the country, at the tops.

To her, it is important for Ghanaians to sit back and ponder over our contribution to the growth of the nation. Ghana at 50 should concentrate more on disciplining our children especially on the environment.