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My Selection as a ‘Women Deliver Young Leader,’ April 2015
Experiences and Benefits
The Women Deliver Programme is a three-year fellowship
programme made up of a cohort of youth under the age of thirty across the world
who prioritize the health and wellbeing of girls and women in their civic
leadership engagements. Under the auspices of Women Deliver, the programme
works to reinforce the capacity of its young subscribers to become more
powerful forces to reckon with in the promotion of the sexual and reproductive
health and rights (SRHR) of women, girls and youth. Women Deliver believes
that, ‘When the world invests in girls and women, everybody wins.’
The benefits of a Young Leader consist of but are not
limited to the following:
-
Visibility
as a Young Leader and champion for sexual and reproductive health and rights of
girls and women;
-
Full
scholarship to attend the Women Deliver 2016 Conference in Copenhagen;
-
Opportunities
to engage in storytelling activities, producing photos, videos, and other media
content that highlights the work that Young Leaders are engaged in at the
community level;
-
Opportunities
to share work, projects and ideas with experts and other young people in the
field through blogs, media interviews, etc.;
-
Networking
opportunities with high-level decision-makers, stakeholders, media, private
sector representatives, and others;
-
Several
information-sharing and capacity-building opportunities on-site at and in the
lead-up tothe Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen;
-
Engagement
with a robust network of other youth advocates and activists working for
SRHRaround the world.
In March 2015, I applied to be a
fellow of the Women Deliver Young Leaders Programme. I was motivated by my
longstanding track record as a young activist in the promotion of the sexual
and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of youth and girls. It was my fervent
prayer to find an international platform where I could join my voice to that of
others to intensify strategies to make a world a better place for all to live
in; especially those whose contributions to societal growth are mostly
underrated. Girls, women and youth have profound prowess to make valuable changes
in the world’s character if the world invests in them. Their wellbeing largely
affects the wellbeing of the entire society. I found out that the Women Deliver
Young Leaders Programme was just the right place for me!
Brimming with panache, I applied for the programme. In April
2015, I was selected from a large pool of applications around the globeto be a
Young Leader of the Women Deliver Young Leaders Programme. Thanks be to God—He
granted my heart’s desire! It was indeed, a great cause for me to be beatific.I
became a member of a cohort of 200 world young leaders working across the globe
to largely foster the wellbeing of girls, and youth.
As a Women Deliver Young Leader, I have built on my
experiences in the programme to strengthen the ‘Help a Girl Save the Society’
project which I initiated in early 2015. It offers comprehensive sexuality
education training to thirty in-school and out-of-school youth in Bamenda.
In addition, the Women Deliver Young Leaders Programme added
impetus to my initiative to found a charity which propagates the health and
welfare of women, girls and youth. This dream finally came true in on 16 August
2015 when Deserve was founded.
Besides, my Women Deliver Profile helped to strengthen my
video application to become a youth moderator and speaker in the 2015
International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP 2015) which was to take place
in November 2015. I was selected and distinctively given the role of moderator
and speaker. ICFP 2015 was postponed to January 2016 and is now known as ICFP 2016.
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