We’re delighted to have had chance to promote girls’ leadership in 2018.
As well as coding training for Lyra’s digital learning supervisors and community events for International Women’s Day, girls have participated in two leadership forums in November - the 2019 Girls’ Entrepreneurship Summit in Dar es Salaam organised by the US Embassy in partnership with Apps for Girls, and the Generation Unlimited event organised by UNICEF.
For both leadership events, one of the key messages was for girls to have the courage to identify their challenges and take action. That they should not be held back or feel resigned, but realise that they had the power to develop their own solutions.
For the girls - who have rarely left their villages - the event gave them unprecedented exposure to role models and new ideas. Girls saw presentations on a range of topics relating to the sustainable development goals including geothermal energy, starting a social enterprise and girls and women’s rights. They heard from a number of inspirational speakers including:
Jokate Mwegelo, the District Commissioner of Kisarawe, and founder of the successful fashion brand Kidoti
The Tanzania Robotics team that participated in competitions in the US and Mexico in 2017 and 2018, having developed products on the SDG themes of renewable energy and water and sanitation.
Successful start-up stories from the 2017 Girls’ Summit which inspired everyone that no matter how young, there is opportunity to start a project or business and succeed.
“We have seen our fellows speaking English very well and having great cooperation among them. They love science subjects and have good computer knowledge.
We learned that education is for own benefit and for our community so we need to use our knowledge to think of things that will help us and the community so that we can solve their problems.”