Solace A. M. Akomeah (Ghana)

Solace A. M. Akomeah, APR (Ghana)

(President, Network of Professional Women in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WiWASH) Ghana | Public Relations & Communications Manager, Accra West Region, Ghana Water Limited)

In a sector defined by pipes, pumps and treatment plants, Solace A. M. Akomeah has built her authority on something less visible but no less vital: the message. An accredited public relations professional and published writer, she has spent her career at the meeting point of water utilities, communities, and the women and girls whose lives depend on both.

As Public Relations and Communications Manager for the Accra West Region of Ghana Water Limited, Solace is the voice of one of the country's largest water operations — a region spanning twelve operational districts and fast-growing peri-urban communities. She has communicated the extension of potable water to water-stressed municipalities such as Ga West, led customer engagement initiatives across the region, and been Ghana Water's public voice in the national campaign against illegal connections and meter theft — losses that, as she has explained, deprive paying households of the service they are owed. Hers is the work of protecting the integrity of a national water network, in public, in plain language.

But it is as President of WiWASH — the Network of Professional Women in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Ghana — that her advocacy reaches furthest. Having risen through the network's ranks as Secretary and then Executive Secretary before assuming its presidency, Solace has made menstrual hygiene and girls' education a national conversation. Under her leadership, WiWASH marks Menstrual Hygiene Day each year with education campaigns, debates, awards and donations of sanitary pads and toiletries to schools across the country — from the Alogboshie and La Wireless clusters in Accra to the Wa Methodist School for the Blind, and schools in Kpeve, Ashaiman and beyond, reaching hundreds of schoolgirls at a time.

Her advocacy is grounded in evidence and delivered without euphemism. Citing UNICEF data, she has warned that more than 31 per cent of adolescent girls in Ghana have never received formal menstrual health education — a gap that breeds stigma, embarrassment and absenteeism — and that nearly two million schoolchildren still lack access to basic water and toilet facilities. She argues that distributing sanitary pads is not enough on its own: schools need the WASH infrastructure to match, or the intervention stops at the classroom door. And she insists the conversation cannot be held by girls alone. Addressing over 300 students from St. Thomas Aquinas Senior High School and La Wireless Girls Junior High School on Menstrual Hygiene Day, she called for an end to the stigmatisation of menstruating girls and urged boys to be educated too — so that they understand menstruation and support the girls around them, rather than shaming them. On the cultural practices that keep menstruating girls out of school and away from rivers, she is unequivocal: "These harmful practices must stop. We want to see a Ghana where girls are bold, healthy, and empowered — where menstruation does not define their ability to succeed."

Through WiWASH, Solace also champions the advancement of women within the water sector itself, promoting leadership, mentorship and professional development for women in a field where they remain scarce at senior levels. Her call to women across Ghana is direct: "Women must take up the responsibility of advocating for better water, sanitation, and hygiene practices."

From the utility newsroom to the school assembly hall, Solace A. M. Akomeah embodies a truth this campaign exists to tell: securing Africa's water future takes engineers and ministers — and it takes the communicators who make sure the message, and the dignity it carries, reaches every girl.

Sources: Ghana News Agency (March 2026, June 2025); The Business & Financial Times (June 2026); Ghanaian Times; Graphic Online; MyJoyOnline; BusinessGhana