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The Global Educators For All Initiative, a global network of formal, informal and non-formal educators (parents, teachers and leaders) as well as educational institutions and agencies that are committed to and working toward facilitating the realization of lifelong education for all people from childhood to adulthood, has conferred an international award on seasoned broadcast journalist, Gifty Dansoa Anti. The ace news broadcaster and hostess of the TV program �The Standpoint� on GTV, was on Wednesday made a Millennium Development Ambassador as a global recognition and mandate for facilitating the realization of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 & 5. The Millennium Development Goals were created at the United Nations Summit of 2000 in New York where leaders from 189 countries pledged to achieve the eight outlined goals targeted for 2015. The UN describes the eight MDGs - which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 - as a blueprint agreed to by all the world�s countries and all the world�s leading development institutions. These goals have galvanised unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world�s poorest people. Goals 4 & 5 touches on Reducing Child Mortality and Improving Maternal Health. The award was conferred on her at a colourful ceremony held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), where an African Local Summit, part of a broader series called The Global Summit was organised. The four-day African Local Summit which has the primary objective of achieving the MDGs, is produced by US-based nonprofit organisation �Empowerment WORKS� on the theme �Empowering Africa to Achieve the MDGS�. Participants from across Africa were at the function with notable figures such as Mr. Kamil Kamaluddeen, UNDP Country Director-Ghana; Chris Hart, an Economist, TV and Radio commentator on market and economic issues, and Chief Strategist at Investment Solutions, South Africa; Ms Theo Sowa, Chief Executive Officer, African Women Development Fund; Rosebell Kagumire, International Journalist and Blogger, Uganda delivering Keynote addresses. With this award, the vivacious Gifty, whose face has been familiar in almost every Ghanaian home over the past 12 years is expected to speak at foras and use her good offices to continually espouse and bring to the fore critical issues affecting women and children. The United Nations reports have insisted that many countries and communities in Africa may not achieve these MDGs by 2015 unless some extra-ordinary measures are taken urgently to inspire local actions and commitments by the people under a conducive environment by the government, and it is the belief that Gifty Anti will be successful in this enterprise. The last of eight children (four boys and four girls), Gifty, who hails from Asempanyin in the Central Region, had different professions in mind while growing up. She had wanted to be an air hostess, while her father, the late Samuel Anti, wanted her to be a lawyer. She also liked people in uniform but her dad would have none of that. She attended the Tema Community 8 �Number 1� Basic School from where she gained admission to the Mfantsiman Girls High School in Saltpond in the Central Region, after sitting for the Common Entrance Exams when she was in Form Two. Gifty said she was later encouraged by her brother to go to the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) after she failed to gain admission to read Land Economy at the University. The ever-bubbly broadcast journalist has been using the media to ensure that women have a voice that is clearly heard by all. She has taken a stand through her �Standpoint� programme on television, to create a vital platform for women to air their views on a wide variety of important matters. The programme, which first aired in July 2008, has caught on so well with many Ghanaians and also touched the lives of others in so many ways. Panelists have discussed topics such as Is Marriage the Ultimate?, Dealing With a Broken Heart, Life Without a Biological Child, Cervical Cancer, Safe Pregnancy, Understanding the Pregnant Woman, Breast Cancer, Pregnancy Did Not Stop Me, Life With a Sickle Cell Child, Life With an Autistic Child, The Muslim Man and Gender Equality, Women and Politics, among others since its inception. Kudos Gifty Anti...more grease to your....