In commemoration of International Day of the Girl, on Friday 11th October 2013, JobSearch and GoWoman magazine held a mentoring breakfast at Balmaya Restaurant and Art Gallery. The event brought together 4 female leaders and 11 young women from secondary schools across Sierra Leone for a morning of mentorship. Our goal was to encourage the young women to believe in themselves and aspire towards achieving their goals, to realize that just like the women they met, they could also grow up to be leaders. It was the first initiative of GoWoman magazine’s “I believe in me” campaign.
Selecting the girls for the event was hard because we received a lot of inspirational essays and we could only choose 12. It was even harder getting the mentors, as we wanted the girls to get the right message – “anything is possible as long as you believe in yourself, always act with integrity no matter the situation and do not compromise your values to achieve your goals”. It was important for us to have women who cared enough to share their stories with passion, listen to the girls and mentor them.
During the final week of the event, 2 of the mentors cancelled and the 3rd asked us to include a colleague. By the morning of the event, we only had 1 mentor, Nicky Spencer-Coker and she was absolutely awesome. Our appreciation also goes out to Christina Bucholtz and Miriam Mason-Sesay who brought their students from Christian Reformed Church School and Educaid respectively for stepping in as mentors.
Despite the disappointment caused by the invited mentors, it was a wonderful morning and we believe our goal was achieved judging from the comments we received from the girls at the end of the event. We are committed to mentoring young women and will continue to organize events that enable us to do so. We want to build a network of committed female leaders who we can count on to take part in some of our activities. Interested parties should email info@jobsearchsl.com