Girls Arise Initiative

Amid the intense wave of solidarity for women across the globe,  Girls Arise Initiative joined the rest of the world to celebrate the 2018 International Women’s Day by engaging young girls with the positive and inspiring # SheCANLead Campaign of the High Commission of Canada in Nigeria. The program, which held on Saturday 17 th March 2018 at the annex of our community office in Lagos had in attendance a total of 85 schoolgirls drawn from 10 schools, who were accompanied by 8 teachers, 5 adolescent mothers, 2 pregnant teenagers, and 4 female professionals drawn from the medical, legal, banking and marketing field who shared their experiences on how they surmounted obstacles to achieve success in life and career. The purpose of the summit was to inspire the girls to break the glass ceiling and crush every form of fear and inhibition standing on their way to achieving greatness in a male-dominated society, especially in the area of career. The facilitators-Mrs...

The New Year started on a very bright and promising note, both for our young girls and adolescent mothers. At our monthly meeting in Ijegun, which held on 20th January, we had an interactive session that focused on the topic-Goal Setting and the need to break new grounds, especially in the area of empowerment through skill acquisition. While those in school were encouraged to write out their goals for Year 2018 and to diligently work towards fulfilling it, the teen mums were stirred to learn new skills besides soap making, given that we are in a dynamic world where people's preferences and demands change from time to time. We also had a trainer-Omotola Jesusina on hand to train both groups on hall decorations for event as a means of generating little income in the community, with the promise of further assistance for those that do well here to go for short-term courses on Events Decoration as we get resources. Although we had more school girls in attendan...

The Girls Arise meeting started with praise and worship. Sis Tope revised the previous meeting topic “empowerment” with the girls. She discussed “Value” with the girls. Opeyemi defined value as a worth of something. Calister said value is an esteem that an individual or the societies cherish. Aunty Tope defined value as principle or standard of behavior. It also means one’s judgment of what is important in life e.g. respect, charity, excellence, she said. It means guidelines or principles that assist you to decide what s right and what is wrong and how to act in various situations. She then asked, is it good to have values? All the girls replied “Yes”. Aunty Tope mentioned Integrity as an importance of value. What is Integrity?, she asked the girls. Semilore said it is an act of having a moral principle. Calister said it is being bold. Aunty Tope said integrity is the quality of being honest, hardworking and having strong moral principle. It is also doing a right...

  The Girls Arise meeting came timely with the celebration of the International Day of the Girl Child which theme was Empower Girls. Sis Tope discussed verbosely with the girls about Girls Empowerment. Sis Tope defined Empowerment as increasing in spiritual, political, social and economic strengthening of a girl child. She talked about the importance of empowerment-    It improves decision making ability   It helps to increase access to information and readiness to learn Empowerment gives youth positive mindset. After Sis Tope discussed Empowerment with the girls, a five-man panelist was selected among the girls to talk and educate others about Empower Girls. Comfort Augustine said empowerment is assisting the girl child socially and economically. Blessing Chijioke said it means to support girls so that they can achieve their desired goals. Chiamaka Chukwuka said it means helping the girls to realize their goals and aspirations. Mrs. A...

Unlike previous meetings where the boys and girls met in separate groups, this month’s meeting was combined. Expectedly, Girls Arise Initiative team took the lead, being the most vibrant and engaging group. We had lots of things to talk about, ranging from how the summer holiday has been to what preparations needs be made as school resumes in few days. The convener, Aunty Aramide stressed the need for youths to be responsible, dutiful and appreciative of the efforts of the organization to serve them selflessly. Thereafter, she called for sincere assessment of all the activities and engagements of Bestspring Foundation since it began operations in Ijegun in October 2013 and more importantly in the last one year when both Girls Arise Initiative and Boys & Champions groups were inaugurated. She noted that the assessment is not to demand praises but to let the foundation know what the pressing needs of the youths are and how best to serve them. It would be recalled tha...

My Mama used to say to me, “I was humiliated by your father. I was treated like a non-living soul”. How painful it is when a woman goes through so much pain. Imagine a woman being disrespected by men. They think they can toy with us, they think we are sex toys, they think we are worthless. We deserve our respect as women, we are not meant to be treated like whores. They are shameless; all they want is put us in pains, lust and tears, but they don’t know the beginning of their downfall is to make us cry. As a woman, we have things in us, we have strong spirit. My mama is my inspiration and that is why I always want to be a feminist. Our power is in our tears!!! We give them life; yet they make us worthless. How painful! We deserve our respect from them, let them know our worth and let us show them our worth. As a woman we deserve our respect. We should understand our power and wield it like Samurai sword. We command respect; we don’t demand it. Just by the way sh...