The
Girls’ Agenda, a young women’s led organisation in The Gambia that champions
the rights and wellbeing of girls and women will host a five-day empowerment
camp for girls.
The
camp, funded by UNICEF, will target fifty (50) young women between the ages of
14 and 24 in the West Coast Region. The empowerment camp is on the theme
‘Progress for Adolescent Girls Require the Guarantee of their Sexual and
Reproductive Health Rights’, and it will be held from the 10th to 14thFebruary,
2017 at the Child Fund Lodge in Bwiam.
The
five-day intensive camp will focus on issues that affect the young women’s
well-being which includes their right to bodily integrity, progress, liberty
and freedom.
The
empowerment forum will cover an intensive introduction to comprehensive
sexuality education, life skills including leadership skills learning,
education and mentorship for girls, harmful traditional practices (with a focus
on early marriage and female genital mutilation/cutting), sexual violence and
related matters.
Female
genital mutilation and child marriage remain some of the most pervasive human
rights violations that undermine girls’ well-being, bodily integrity, an
opportunity to education and self-reliance.
In
Africa alone, millions of girls are at risk of undergoing these harmful
practices because of a patriarchal culture that controls women’s sexuality and
bodies.
Although
The Gambia recently created a law that prohibits FGM, its widespread acceptance
obviously will lead to the secret performance of the act on minors many women’s
rights organizations observed.
Therefore,
The Girls’ Agenda feel that behaviour change towards FGM and all other forms of
degrading treatments should be a combination of social denouncement and a legal
approach. To achieve this, there is no better and sustainable approach than
teaching and engaging young people to lead the change that will end inequality,
discrimination and degrading treatment of women and girls.
With
this camp, we hope to revolutionize the demand for the respect and protection
of the sexual and reproductive health rights of women and girls, fight to end
disparities in education, build healthier and empowered adolescent girls and
the eradication of harmful traditional practices in our communities.
The
camp will help raise awareness of young women about the factors responsible for
the perpetuation of FGM, clarify misconceptions that support the practice, show
them the evidences/consequences of FGM (which are often kept as secrets or
misinterpreted) and prepare them to become change agents through organizing,
lobbying and advocacy skills.
We
hope that this camp will empower the girls, both socially and politically, and
enable them use their voices and work towards ending FGM and related
discriminated practices in our generation. We believe that the world will
become a better and progressive place if girls are able to speak for themselves
to end violence and inequality in every home and community. The Girls’ Agenda Team
