Emelia Naa Ayeley Aryee, Sose Ghana Govt Director
Stigma in opposition to infertility stays prevalent in households and communities throughout Ghana, with ladies usually bearing the best burden. The scenario is comparable in lots of African international locations, together with neighboring Nigeria, Togo, and Ivory Coast. Even in developed international locations, {couples}, particularly ladies, proceed to face discrimination and psychological misery as a consequence of infertility.
This displays society’s deep expectations that every one ladies ought to be capable of conceive and provides beginning, no matter their private needs or medical circumstances.
Understanding the stigma round infertility
Infertility stigma refers back to the social devaluation, discrimination, and prejudice skilled by people or {couples} who’re unable to conceive. Slightly than being handled merely as a medical situation, infertility is seen as a private or societal failure, usually leading to disgrace, isolation, and emotional misery.
Roughly 1 in 6 folks around the globe expertise infertility. Nonetheless, ladies endure disproportionate prejudice as a consequence of long-standing cultural beliefs that hyperlink ladies’s identification and price to motherhood.
For years, advocates have referred to as for an finish to this stigma and urged society to assist affected ladies and {couples}. One of many organizations main this marketing campaign in Ghana is Xoese Ghana, an NGO that promotes a holistic method to addressing infertility and the stigma related to it.
By way of her interactions with affected {couples}, Ms. Emelia Nah Airey Ali, Govt Director of Sose Ghana, realized that advocacy alone will not be sufficient.
“We want a sensible method. For the struggle in opposition to infertility and stigma to be significant, we want medical intervention for ladies. Girls are stigmatized as a result of they do not have a child. Subsequently, if potential, serving to ladies have a child will finish the stigma,” Ali defined.
The mission of Emelia na Ailey Arie
Emelia Naa Ayeley Aryee is a multi-award successful Ghanaian journalist with over 15 years of expertise specializing in gender advocacy, ladies’s empowerment and wellbeing.
She has labored with a number of print and digital media organizations in Ghana and overseas.
Because the Founder and Govt Director of Sose Ghana, Emelia has been devoted to ladies’s empowerment and women’ schooling.
Privately generally known as Mrs. Emelia Owusu-Mensah, she is presently main Sose Ghana’s marketing campaign in opposition to infertility stigma. As a part of this effort, she based the Xoese Fertility and Mom Assist (Xoese FMS) digital clinic in 2024 to offer sensible assist to ladies dealing with infertility challenges.
To realize this, she partnered with Dr. Samuel Jedu Owusu, who beforehand labored at LEKMA Hospital in Accra and presently works at St. Anthony Catholic Hospital in Zoje, Volta Area.
Dr. Gedu assesses the affected person’s well being, interprets check outcomes, and prescribes applicable therapy.
The men and women who sought assist suffered from a wide range of fertility-related circumstances, together with hormonal imbalances, diminished sperm viability, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) (now also called polyendocrine-metabolic ovary syndrome (PMOS)), pelvic inflammatory illness, and secondary infertility.
To ease the monetary burden on {couples} searching for infertility therapy, Emelia has secured partnerships with infertility and medical establishments by means of Chausse in Ghana, together with Readability Specialist Scan, Metropolis Healthcare, Tema Girls’s Hospital and Accra Fertility Middle. By way of these partnerships, shoppers are actually in a position to entry providers at discounted charges.
5 kids born in 2 years
Inside two years of its institution, Emelia’s intervention resulted within the beginning of 5 kids: three boys and two women.
The primary child, a boy, was born to 28-year-old Madam Millicent in Tema in February 2025 after 5 years of unsuccessful makes an attempt to conceive earlier than connecting with Sose Ghana.
The couple’s second little one, a boy, was born in April 2025 to Ashaiman’s spouse Josephine (41), who had struggled with infertility for 14 years.
A 3rd little one, one other boy, was born to 38-year-old Madame Endurance of Tessier in December 2025 after 12 years of making an attempt to conceive.
The fourth little one, the primary woman to be born, was born in February 2026 to Mr Shiny’s spouse in Tema. A 12 months after their marriage, the couple found that the husband’s sperm was not viable. After therapy, his situation improved inside six months, and he turned pregnant and had a profitable beginning of a daughter.
Madame Grace’s fifth child was born in March 2026 after she briefly struggled with infertility.
Allie says her biggest pleasure is seeing ladies who have been as soon as ridiculed for being childless lastly acknowledged as moms.
Regardless of challenges, together with what she describes as ingratitude from some beneficiaries after profitable therapy, she stays dedicated to serving to extra {couples} overcome the stigma of infertility.
“Among the folks we helped by no means even stated ‘thanks’ to me or Dr Gedu. Some stopped calling, others promised to come back with their child and by no means heard from us once more. This was having a damaging affect on my psychological well being, however I’ve realized to beat it,” she revealed.
Different advocacy campaigns
Emelia has persistently targeted on discovering sensible options to societal challenges. Her earlier campaigns have targeted on little one marriage and interval poverty.
In 2022, she rescued a pregnant teenage woman from little one marriage and helped her return to highschool after giving beginning. The woman lived together with her mother and father in Akwetikwaso, close to Adoso within the Jap Area, and was from an space the place teenage being pregnant and little one marriage are prevalent.
Emelia is optimistic that optimistic change is feasible with willpower and continued effort.
She partnered with a Ghanaian pharmaceutical firm to donate medical provides to establishments resembling Tema Manhin Basic Hospital, Mamprobi Basic Hospital and St. Anthony’s Catholic Hospital. The donations included iron dietary supplements, cough syrup, and different important medical provides.
profession skilled
Past journalism, Emelia is a communications skilled, head of buyer assist and high quality management, and buyer satisfaction skilled.
She has participated in quite a few nationwide and worldwide conferences and webinars as a visitor speaker and moderator.
Her latest efforts embody the 2024 Let Me Be A Girl Convention hosted by the LetMeBeAWoman Basis. 2025 International Black Infertility Agenda (GBIA) Symposium hosted by REPRA Well being Motion, SisterSong, and the Middle for Maternal and Youngster Well being Fairness at Morehouse Faculty of Medication, USA. Gender Equality Capability Constructing Program by the Ghana Gender Middle. Merck Basis Girls’s Well being Convention in Tanzania.
She has additionally appeared on a number of nationwide tv reveals discussing infertility, home violence, and different gender-related points.
Emelia is a two-time winner of the Merck Basis’s “Extra Than A Mom” award, rising as runner-up within the English-speaking West Africa class in 2022 and total winner in 2023.
She beforehand spent 5 years at YEN.com.gh, the place she served as Monitoring Editor on the Leisure Desk in 2018, the place she was liable for sourcing story concepts for the group.
Emelia is married to Mr. Jeffrey Owusu-Mensah, who she says could be very supportive of her skilled ambitions and profession aspirations.
About Sose Ghana
Chausse Ghana was formally based in 2023 by Ms. Ally, who witnessed the sturdy stigma confronted by ladies dealing with infertility points in her group.
The group goals to create a secure area to boost consciousness about infertility and information ladies to potential therapy and assist choices.
The concept for the digital clinic emerged after Chausse Ghana’s first Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) consciousness seminar held in Ghana on September 27, 2023. In the course of the occasion, organizers realized that many ladies wanted sensible medical assist along with advocacy.
In June 2024, Soce Ghana hosted an infertility convention bringing collectively infertility specialists to coach individuals and the broader public about infertility and reproductive well being.
The group has additionally hosted a number of webinars aimed toward persevering with to boost consciousness and assist {couples} overcome infertility and the stigma that comes with it.
