… a female empowerment programme
On Monday, March 7, 2022, the Kwahu Professionals Network (KPN) will hold the maiden edition of its female empowerment initiative dubbed ‘KPNinspires 2022’.
The initiative has been curated as part of activities marking the global celebration of this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD). International Women’s Day, which falls on March 8 annually, is a day set aside to celebrate women’s achievement, raise awareness against bias and take action for equality.
For the maiden edition of the ‘KPNinspires’, a day’s knowledge, experience sharing, and mentorship session will be held for final year female students from selected senior high schools in the Kwahu area.
The objective is to empower these young girls to aspire to greater heights, especially in typically male-dominated fields and #breakthebias as per this year’s IWD theme. To achieve this, a team of accomplished Kwahu ladies, who are breaking gender stereotypes and excelling in their careers, have been selected as speakers for the programme.
They include the main speaker, Dr. Mrs Cynthia Amaning Danquah, of the Department of Pharmacology, KNUST, and the proud recipient of the 2020 Africa Oxford Research Development award. She will speak on the theme, ‘Breaking the bias today for a sustainable tomorrow’. She will be supported by five other ladies whose expertise spans public service, media, health, entrepreneurship and law.
Speaking on the initiative, the president of KPN, Prince Boateng, said: “this network has as an objective, the promotion and facilitation of the ambition of the Kwahu youth to access opportunities and strive for excellence. And our young Kwahu girls remain our top priority to achieving this. It is the reason that we came up with this initiative. We hope that by listening to the stories of our women leaders, they will be inspired and encouraged to discard traditional notions that suggest that some professions are the preserve of men.”
He added that “the network will come up with more of such initiatives and also support efforts aimed at raising a generation of kwahu girls who are fearless, passionate about their dreams and will stop at nothing to become who and what they want to be.”
The Vice President of KPN, Hesthalynna Ottou Osafo who is also the lead for the maiden edition said, she is passionate about it as she took great inspiration from such an opportunity that enabled her to identify herself and to be who she is today. She added that all must endeavour to motivate and encourage the young ones to strive to attain and reach higher heights.
The programme will be in two main segments. The first will be the general forum, where the main speaker will interact with the general students’ body on the chosen theme. It will be followed by a breakout session, dubbed ‘LeadHerShip’, which will allow the students to join a discussion session led by a speaker whose career field they would like to pursue. About 250 students are expected to participate in the programme at the Nkwatia Senior High School in Kwahu.
