Worried by the statistics indicating
that 15 million girls of primary school age – half of them in
sub-Saharan Africa – will never enter a classroom, an African energy
conglomerate, Sahara Group is providing an empowerment platform that
would give wings to the aspirations of the African girl-child.
Tagged ‘Empowering the African Girl
Child’, the project is being implemented under Sahara’s Grooming Film
Extrapreneurs initiative, which seeks to promote economic empowerment
through the arts.
Sahara Foundation, in collaboration with
Zuriel Oduwole, a young film maker and advocate for girl-child
education and gender equality, will host a film making session for 90
African girls in Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’ Ivoire from January 8-17,
2018 to give the beneficiaries a head start towards pursuing a career in
the creative arts.
According to the Head, Corporate
Communications, Sahara Group, Bethel Obioma, the project is expected to
drive the advocacy message for girls’ rights; highlight key issues
affecting girls across the three African countries; and equip 90 girls
with the foundational skills required to become film makers.
“We plan to identify and empower girls
who have shown a talent for film making and/or production. Our hope is
that the initiative would inspire and replicate Zuriel’s success among
other girls her age in Africa. Above all, Sahara Group is particularly
passionate about the fact that the project would give traction to
ongoing conversations and interventions geared towards the pursuit of
gender equality and quality education, being goals four and five of the
Sustainable Development Goals.”
Speaking on her partnership with Sahara,
Oduwole said she is hopeful that the success of the project would
encourage more corporations around the world to create partnerships with
small groups to empower more girls across the globe.
“I like the fact that Sahara Group sees
some value in what I am doing with girls’ education across the world,
and just like the African proverb, ‘if you want to go fast, go alone,
and if you want to go far, go together’. I think I have gone very fast
in the last five years since I started my project at age 10. Sahara has
shown they are serious about girls education, so it is easy for me to
create a partnership, so we can do more together for girls education in
Africa, and also around the world,” said the teenage film maker who at
the age of 12 had her self-produced movie screened in a commercial
cinema.
The Manager, Sahara Foundation, Oluseyi
Ojurongbe, said the film making workshop would run for two days in each
of the three countries. “The participants will be expected to execute a
joint docu-film project featuring human angle stories of children across
Africa- using their countries as case studies- to highlight challenges,
opportunities and aspirations of the girl-child in Nigeria, Ghana or
Cote D’Ivoire.”
Ojurongbe explained that 90 girls (30
from each country) from age 13 to 19 have been identified across the
three African countries as beneficiaries based on their interests in
film making.
“The physical workshop training will be
accompanied by several on-line and classroom based mentorship/follow-up
sessions for six months to track and sustain the progress of the
beneficiaries. At Sahara, we are hopeful that the platform would amplify
the cause of empowering the girl-child across the continent though the
voices of the beneficiaries and millions of other girls that would be
inspired to reach for their dreams.”
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