"I once saw a female engineer constructing a road with other male engineers. I thought it was really weird, but special."
- Oreoluwa Jayesimi (14 Years Old)
Saturday, 7th February 2015 was another golden day for #ProjectKuuliza. The exciting topic for discussion was "Girls in Leadership, Entrepreneurship & Technology" and we had our ever-ready Volunteers to deliver on the insightful sessions for the day.
Going first was Tayo Fagbohun - an inspiring tech-savvy young man, who is currently undergoing the National Youth Service Corps in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. As a former Google Student Ambassador and an avid advocate for girls taking up careers in ICT, Tayo enthusiastically led the discussion - "Girls in Technology". He examined the concept of the internet as a powerful child of technology, taking the girls through the uses, mode of operation, essence and indispensability of the internet in today's world. Piquing their interest, he told interesting stories of women doing amazing things with the internet all over the world - citing especially, Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer of Facebook). Tayo moved on to examine career opportunities in Technology with the girls, emphasizing that innovative girls who have passion for solving problems and an interest in the way technology works can build excellent tech careers. He closed the session by encouraging the girls not to be discouraged from showing interest in technology due to societal gender bias because "technology puts girls in a really wonderful leadership position to make impact".
Up next was the highly engaging Yewande Ogunajo, who discussed "Girls in Entrepreneurship". Yewande emphasized a problem-solving attitude as the key value of an entrepreneur, telling the girls that profit and economic benefits are not the only drivers of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. Bringing entrepreneurship closer to the girls, she inspired them to always take note of problems in their school and work towards finding solutions to them.
After Yewande's session, one of the girls (Olayinka) pledged to work on her idea of achieving Unity across the world, as her own unique form of entrepreneurship!
To wrap up the day's discussion, I took the girls on a voyage of discovering the clarity of leadership. The girls had commendable perceptions of leadership, using powerful words like Passion, Service, and Determination to describe the roles a leader plays. Noting that Africa lacks a significant number of women and girls in leadership at the moment, we examined the leadership qualities exemplified by women and girls in Africa's history. The girls were awed by the sacrifice and leadership traits of Moremi Ajasoro of Ile-Ife, Princess Inikpi of Igala kingdom, Yaa Asantewa of Ghana and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Egba land. After encouraging the girls to embrace leadership everywhere they find themselves, I ended the session by sharing the story of 21 year old Miss Alengot Oromait of Uganda - the youngest parliamentarian in Africa!
The pretty and apt GPC Volunteer - Erere Oghoghome closed our meeting for the day by inspiring the girls with 2 wonderful short videos. The "I will be a Hummingbird" video by Nobel Laureate - Wangari Maathai seemed to motivate the girls a whole lot! (Thank you Erere)
The day was highly phenomenal. Girl Pride Circle will do more.
After Yewande's session, one of the girls (Olayinka) pledged to work on her idea of achieving Unity across the world, as her own unique form of entrepreneurship!
To wrap up the day's discussion, I took the girls on a voyage of discovering the clarity of leadership. The girls had commendable perceptions of leadership, using powerful words like Passion, Service, and Determination to describe the roles a leader plays. Noting that Africa lacks a significant number of women and girls in leadership at the moment, we examined the leadership qualities exemplified by women and girls in Africa's history. The girls were awed by the sacrifice and leadership traits of Moremi Ajasoro of Ile-Ife, Princess Inikpi of Igala kingdom, Yaa Asantewa of Ghana and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Egba land. After encouraging the girls to embrace leadership everywhere they find themselves, I ended the session by sharing the story of 21 year old Miss Alengot Oromait of Uganda - the youngest parliamentarian in Africa!
The day was highly phenomenal. Girl Pride Circle will do more.
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