By Moma Sandrine
A Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), Mother of Hope Cameroon (MOHCAM) has celebrated the international day of the girl child with a call on girls to stay responsible in their interactions with people in society.
The day was celebrated nationwide under the theme “empowering girls before, during and after the crises”.
As part of this year’s celebration in Bamenda, MOHCAM got several girls engaged in inclusive skilled empowerment workshops.
The celebration that held at the CBC Health centre in Bamenda brought together scores of girls who could not help but share their wonderful experiences “it was a wonderful celebration. I have learnt a lot and I encourage my fellow girls to believe in themselves and never give up”, one of the participants reacted.
According to one of the participants, Maureen Dunghu, “We had talks encouraging young girls to be proactive and how to empower ourselves before, during and after crisis. During this period of crisis in the region, many of us got ourselves involved in learning a trade or handwork. We have learnt a lot during the celebration of the international day of the girl child in Bamenda”, she explained.
The Executive Director of MOHCAM, Adah Mbah says the vision that started in 2010 was inspired by the need to get more girls to perform better in education and occupy high positions in the society. “I am a teacher by profession for over 17 years now and I have been getting concerned on the output of girls in terms of results…we see that most girls register more in examinations and at the end of it they come out less. So I decided to take a survey…I realized that most of the girls have issues that stream from their homes, community and friends, and such issues need to be addressed…I took upon myself in line with the notion of cooperate social responsibility, to start talking to girls, engaging them to leadership, teaching them the basic things they ought to know and also to break the notion that marriage was the optimum goal of every girl”.
This year’s celebration of the international day of the girl child comes at a time when the North West Region has been facing sociopolitical challenges.
It should be recalled that in December 2011, the international day of the girl child was instituted by the United Nations and since then, it is being celebrated every October 11th.