Every march 8th is a global day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
Beyond marking March 8 as International Women’s Day, Vision Spring Initiatives is committed to ensuring equal access to resources for women and girls to enable them to take leadership positions in all sectors.
The theme for this year is Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a covid-19 world seeks to stress the importance of having women in leadership positions and being part of the decision-making processes at global, regional, and national levels during the pandemic. The #ChoosetoChallenge is aimed to expose various issues such as traditional harmful practices, violence against women and girls, gender roles, sexual harassment in the workplace, etc., that have served as barriers for women in taking leadership positions.
On March 5 and 10, 2021, VSI commemorated the IWD2021 with secondary school students of Sceptre Comprehensive College and DE Keepers School respectively in Lagos. The program was designed to have the students make presentations in form of storytelling, art, spoken words, poetry, and essay writing on the role of women in achieving an equal future in a covid-19 world. The purpose of the event was to have a range of creative contributions from the students on how women and girls can play important roles in achieving an equal future.
The students within the age range of 12-16 submitted and presented valuable and creative pieces in different forms of art which were captured by two television media stations present.
With VSI’s #GirlImpact Project, our focus is to educate, inform and transform the mindset of adolescents and young people from gender roles and its limitations to the superiority of choice and human rights. Our weekly engagements with the students provide the platform to engage meaningfully on issues that will help them learn, unlearn and relearn.
As we move forward from March 8, we use this opportunity to urge the government to commit funding to effective programs on how to achieve an equal future in a covid-19 world especially for adolescents and young people.
