A women’s leadership non-profit organization, Leading Ladies Network based in Ghana has initiated series of mentorship programs for girls in the Ga North Municipality under the patronage of Honorable Gertrude Ankrah, the M.C.E and supported by the Ga North Progressive Majors Fund.
In a press briefing, the founder of Leading Ladies Network, Madam Yawa Hansen-Quao said the School Mentorship Sessions aims at lifting the status of girls in the municipality.
Madam Yawa said this was the first of five different on-sight mentorship programs to be conducted in schools within the municipality. Highlighting on the greater need for such programs, Madam Yawa said the group has identified three common challenges of most girls that threaten their progress. She mentioned that most girls come from very difficult and poor homes, others have single parents and a number of girls fend for themselves.
She said poverty, the lack of parental guidance and teenage pregnancies have had negative effect on most girls but the key focus of Leading Ladies Network is to help these girls see themselves not as victims but as girls who have an opportunity to transform their own destiny through its intervention. She said most of the girls who are beneficiaries of the mentorship sessions have leadership potentials with ambitions and aspirations to lead and it is the obligation of likeminded organizations to offer such resource. The NGO said most of these girls have experienced lots of pain in their developmental process and it is the duty of the older generation to keep their hopes alive.
Expanding her thought, Madam Yawa said, Africa has the youngest and youthful population with a global average age of 17 years. The sad disconnect is the fact that the average age of leaders in Africa is 60 years. ‘We have a very young youthful population governed by the very old hence the disconnect’. This is the best time to get ever closer to our girls to restore hope. Our posture in addressing issues should be conscious in affecting young people positively.
Beneficiary girls expressed satisfaction and joy at the end of the mentorship session at the St John’s Grammar School in Achimota where 300 girls were mentored and empowered through topics in Personal Development, Learning by practice and application, Identifying and preparing for scholarship opportunities, Personal and Sexual Hygiene ,Teenage Pregnancy and its repercussion ,Becoming Financial literate ( Learning to live within budget, savings and investment)
Other topics were Harnessing Social Media and other technological asset for opportunities, Leadership and Career Development, Developing 21st Century Skills, Deciding on a career path and preparing for it, Exploring careers in the public and private sector and Exploring the entrepreneurship route.
The 2nd School Mentoring Session will be held at Omanjor MA, Pokuase Methodist 1 & Pokuase Methodist2. Leading Ladies Network is poised to affect the lives of 1000 girls in the Ga North Municipal by December this year.