Recent graduates and school leavers find themselves unprepared for the job application process and do not know how to present their CVs or prepare for interviews. Looking for a job is challenging for young women due to the high unemployment rates in most of our growing African economies. Skills and experience mismatch from the various […]
Category Archives: All Articles
It’s always good to step back and reflect on what we are doing and how successful it is. Whether it is baking a cake, or what you and your mentee are achieving thanks to mentoring, it’s good to think about how you can have more impact and adapt for better results. Questions for your mentee […]
Our African education systems do not always reward or encourage reflection and we may find that this approach is as new to us as it is to our mentees. Young women learn from example, and we cannot give what we do not practise and understand. To teach young women to reflect, it helps if we […]
To conclude, we are sharing some stories on mentoring; Amaka and Sheera: Passionate about mentoring Amaka and Sheera live in Benin City in Nigeria. They realised that there were many girls in their neighbourhood, who had graduated from secondary schools and who, while waiting to get into higher institutions of learning (universities and polytechnics) for […]
As women working to empower young women and girls in three African countries – South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya – we see the potential of young women. Their talents, resilience and ingenuity. We also see the overwhelming challenges that many women and girls face. Looking at these, we can feel overwhelmed. What can we do […]
If we are going to empower young African women and build a stronger civil society we need to be first honest with ourselves as youth workers. We want to give girls the chance to create positive change so we have to understand the things inside of us that are resisting this. Many of us, deep […]
I saw that we were a little bit scared of the young people. Young women today are often very disrespectful if you compare them to how we were raised. We were terrified even of older girls at school! But then we realised over time that this is what we need. We need to give young […]
I knew this place was different from the first time I started coming here. The second time, someone remembered my name. They asked me about my mother as she had been sick. I not only felt welcome, but that I belonged. Now I am happy to make others welcome here. Ify, Young Person Sometimes we […]
Many of the girls we work with are deeply insecure. Their streets, homes and schools have often not been safe places for them. Many have experienced violence and belittling. They have not been able to express their opinions. Their creativity has not been rewarded. Their success has not been praised. In our project we want […]
In my university all of the societies have a male student as chairman. The chairman and the secretary are always men. We can only become vice-chairman or treasurer. We accept this. But also many of us just don’t believe we could be chairwoman. I see how clever my friends are, that they are just as […]