Girls Excellence Movement launched

The Brigadier-General Constance Edjeani-Afenu on Thursday called on the public to support activities of Girls Excellence Movement (GEM) to enable it fulfil its call of empowering and inspiring girls to excel in all their endeavours.

She said women added value to things and tended to forget themselves, using two phrases - “Give us seed and we give you babies, give us groundnut and we give you groundnut soup” – to support her assertion.

“Let us not shrink in our little corner, we are capable,” she said, adding that, everyone needed someone to empower and inspire him, hence the need to believe in GEM and what it stood for.

GEM is a non-profit youth organisation into motivating, inspiring, mentoring and informing to transform girls into great women of excellence.

Brigadier-General Edjeani-Afenu, who said this at the launch of GEM in Accra, said it was important to open up and extend help to those who have not seen the light and wished that the activities of GEM would bring about ‘Balance for Better’ as the global theme for this year’s International Women’s Day celebration.

She, however, was delighted that the activities of GEM were in agreement with the Sustainable Development Goal 5 and 10, which speaks on gender equality and reducing inequality.

The Brigadier-General urged the public to support the movement in every way they could, being it in cash or kind and applauded the leaders for their hard work, sacrifices and continued mentorship.

Mrs Eugenia Tachie Menson, the Chief Executive Officer of Young Educators Foundation, said mostly education happened outside the classroom, hence learning was a subset of education and should not be limited to the classroom.

She said education was bigger than how it is being seen and it depends on the individual strategies used to acquire it.

Speaking on Mentorship, Mrs Tachie Menson, said one person could not mentor everything in an individual’s life, so one could have different mentors to transform different aspects of their lives.

She said: “As mentors, always speak the truth to your mentee so as to enable that person to actualize the struggles and stages to go through in being what they desire to be”.

“Mentors are human beings and ought to have made mistakes in the past and should not be seen as mini-gods,” she noted. She said mentors should be open and allow their mentees to see the vulnerability in them as humans, adding that, “mentees should also be willing to learn, sacrifice and not to over rely on the mentors.”

Ms Juliana Ama Kplorfia, Executive Director of GEM, said they have been able to reach out to 7,325 girls on 42 outreaches since its existence in 2008 and had donated 300 boxes of sanitary pad to 4,825 girls in communities and schools they have visited.

She said GEM would continue to make the difference by establishing GEM clubs in all schools as well as establish shelters across the regions as the way forward.

She applauded their sponsors and every individual who supported the movement since its inception and pushing its mandate to inspire girls to excel.

She appealed for grants to sponsor projects, create strategic partnerships with other organisations to enable them increase the figures they have achieved over the years.

Testimonies about GEM’s visits to schools and how it transformed their lives were told by some senior high school students, who were present at the launch.

As part of its activities, the movement undertakes motivational outreaches to schools, orphanages and rural communities.