1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

ing a Western pattern of behavior often
result in a weakening of family ties.
There is also the danger that with ties
to her family loosened or broken, she may
become involved in promiscuity. In many
towns there is a scarcity of women, and
those that are available are considered by
many to be sexually loose. Women outside
the protection of family restrictions can
easily be sucked into the cesspool of urban
immorality. So Christian families that
choose to live in the city need to be on
guard.
Education Affords Opportunities
The lack of a school education has long
restricted the activities of African women.
But now that is beginning to change. In
Ghana, for example, of the 203,790 women
who are fifty-five years of age and over,
only three percent are educated, or at
least have received some schooling during
their life; whereas, in 1960, of all the girls
in the age-group of six to fourteen, 29.8
percent were attending school regularly.
Compulsory education was introduced in
Ghana in 1961, and the majority of yOW1g
girls are now attending school. According
to the latest avaiJable figures, throughout
Africa girls account for about 30 percent
of the primary school enrollment and 22
percent of the enrollment in secondary
schools.
Many African women are now beginning
to avail themselves of the opportunities
that are opened in the changing African
society to those having an education.
They are filling the positions of teachers,
nurses, secretaries, and so forth. Some go
on to W1iversities and colleges abroad.
Even the illiterate adult can become an
educated woman today. Literacy campaigns
have been organized in many countries
to give thousands of men and women
who have had no schooling an opportW1ity
to learn to read and write. In addition,
there are vocational or practical-type education
programs that are provided in some
places by government and private agencies.
Here illiterate women can learn such
things as dressmaking, hairdressing or
domestic service.
Not to be overlooked in these efforts to
assist African women are the hundreds of
literacy classes conducted throughout Africa
by Jehovah's witnesses. During the past
decade literally thousand" uf African women
have been taught to read, thus affording
them the marvelous opportunity to read
God's Word the Bible and speak its comfotting
message to others. Not long ago a
government officer gave a speech at the
"graduation" of one of these classes in
Ghana, in which he said: "If yOUl' spirit
was manifested in other organizations, this
country would soon have less illiterates.
I will mention your fine example to others
to emulate."
Yes, Africa is indeed a fast-changing society.
Many changes have been effectcd in
the past decade, and many more are sure
to be experienced in the future. Judging
from the ('vents of recent years, we can
be SUl'e that those changes \vill continue
to have a deep influence on the lives of the
women of Africa.
MARVEL OF REGENERATION
• The starfish('s, which are not really fishes, often invade oyster beds and cause
(:onsitlerable destruction. Some decades ago a group of oysh'rmen employpd a
man to wreak vengeanee on their enemy by having him ehop in two th .. starfish
attacking their oysters. In a short time, however, the area had twice as many 5tal-fish.
It remained for scientists to discover that chopping up a starfish is no way to
reduce their numbers, since a starfish can regenerate all its missing parts.
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