The League of Young Female Leaders has held a summit dubbed “HerStory Summit” to mark the International Women’s Day celebration on the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”.
The summit brought together young girls from selected Senior High Schools in the region, women and students from the University for Development Studies (UDS).
The Executive Lead of the League of Young Female Leaders, Baba Dua Hikmat at the event indicated that the “Herstory Summit” seeks to highlight the stories of women in diverse professional fields in Ghana not only to amplify and inspire; but also, as a call to action for intentional mentorship and a committed effort by these accomplished women to young women and girls.
“ Most girls do not have role models , mentors they look up to in order to empower , support and encourage them and so we believe that narrative has to change and we got stories of accomplished women in Ghana for the young ones to appreciate that regardless of where they come from they can become accomplished one day.”
According to her, the goal of the summit is to amplify and champion the powerful voices of accomplished women, illuminate their stories, foster self-advocacy among young women, and encourage thriving mentorship as well as sisterhood.
She indicated that they intend to hold the summit in other regions for girls, women and the youth to benefit from it.
Madam Hikmat was of the view that girl’s and women are left behind in terms of digital transformation and that the lack of access to digital tools forms part of the challenges they go through.
“We believe that if you want to bridge that gender gap in the technological world we need to start working with our young girl’s to start appreciating the need to go into the areas of STEM to become software engineers , mathematicians and all of the professionals in the STEM field.”
The “HerStory Summit” also had panelists such as Dr. Wunpini F. Mohammed (Assistant Professor, Georgia University – USA), Mrs. Regina Honu (Executive Director, Soronko Academy – Accra) and Hajia Rabi Salifu (Deputy National Communications Director, NPP) who shared their stories of growth, challenges, milestones and the generality of who they are.
Most of the female participants of the summit expressed their excitement about meeting the resource personalities adding that they have been encouraged to be confident and venture into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and male-dominated fields.
The League of Young Female Leaders (THE LEAGUE) is a nonprofit focused on leadership development, education, mentorship and advocacy. It emphasizes the importance of participation, empowerment, and inclusion as its approaches to development and has implemented projects and organized programs in the areas of education, health, climate change, and gender equality – all in line with the current Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).