By Aisha Tamba
Safe Hands for Girls on Monday began a four-day workshop on business planning for girls in the country.
The workshop, which is taking place at a local hotel in Senegambia, hopes to enhance social asset building, based on evidence that can cultivate social support, positive relationships, skills and other protective assets that can improve health and behavior outcomes for adolescent girls and young women.
The Minister of Basic and Secondary Education, Claudiana Cole, speaking on behalf of the vice president, said the purpose of the workshop is to “think through and commit ourselves” to increasing investment in girls during their adolescence through schooling, and the creation of safe and supportive spaces.
“And those spaces are spaces to study, acquire livelihood skills, and participate in modernising technology, and to lay the foundation for their [girls] roles as participants in the New Gambia’s democracy,” she said.
Deputising the executive director of Safe Hands, Sait Matty Jaw, national coordinator, defined the training as one of the most important his organisation has ever organised.
“We feel that this is the biggest event we have partnered with organisations in the country, and we are proud and happy for the opportunity it brings for this country, particularly to the adolescent girls in the poorest community,” he said.
Mr Jaw said the training is important because it will help with the many issues confronting young girls in the country, which he said can be addressed through proper planning backed by evidence to create the needed impact.
Safe Hands for Girls is a survivor-led women’s rights organisation that aims to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and all other forms violence against women through awareness raising advocacy, youth empowerment, and community outreach.
