More than thirty young women in tertiary institutions have been inducted into the second phase of a Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Project mentoring scheme.
The Acting Project Manager, of Women’s Voice and Leadership Project, Ms. Nnenna Ugbor said the launch of the second phase of its mentoring programme was to ensure sustainability as the project gradually approaches its end in Cross River State.
Ugbor said, “The WVL Project is supported by ActionAid Nigeria and funded by Global Affairs Canada with Gender and Development Action GADA as the implementing partners. The project is five years old and gradually coming to an end.
“So for the sustainability of the mentoring scheme in this project, we launched a second phase, where we invited our pilot mentees comprising 30 young girls to take over the vision of the programme and mentor the next group of young women. So, this is a sustainability plan to keep the vision, knowledge and gains of the project going,” she said.
Continuing, she said, “It is important to note that GADA invited the initial 30 girls from three different tertiary institutions in Calabar and these are the University of Calabar, the University of Cross River State and College of Health Technology. We selected 10 girls each and trained them in leadership skills.”
She said that the expectation was to have more young women receive mentorship training, learn from the challenges and successes of their mentors and find their voice in the community.
“We expect that having passed through our programme, the mentors would have better ideas and skills to transfer to these mentees. We hope that these new ones would be assisted to find their voices in a community where more men are leading,” Ugbor stressed.
The gains
In an interview, one of the mentors, a student of the College of Health Technology, Calabar, Miss Gift Emori said she was delighted to be mentoring another young girl like she was trained.
She said, “My goal is to assist the mentees attached to me gain confidence and utility technology to expand her business. She is a tailor and very much interested in how she can increase her customer base despite being a student herself. I prepared to help her use digital technology to benefit herself as an entrepreneur besides developing an interest in politics.”
Another mentor, a fresh graduate of Educational Technology from the University of Calabar and fashion designer, Gladys Ntamo explained that although this was the first time she would be mentoring anyone, she hoped for the best.
Ntamo stated, “Before attending the training with GADA, I knew nothing about social media, I was not interested at all. But, now I appreciate it because, through social media advertising, I have been able to advertise my skills.
“As a young girl, you will agree with me that it is not an easy task sewing for me. So to have nearly 20 clients already is something and that was achieved through digital advertising. So, I am in a position to transfer the knowledge and skills acquired over the years to my mentee,” she emphasized.
The mentors expressed the hope that each of them would have future opportunities to mentor more young girls with the knowledge and skills gained, appreciating GADA and its partners for the opportunity to learn.
Dominica Nwabufo
