Move out of your comfort zones and let your light shine – Gender Director tells girls

The Upper West Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Charity Batuure has urged girls and young women (GYW) to move out of their comfort zones

and take challenging roles to bring out the best leadership potentials in them.

She emphasized that GYW’s ability to survive uncomfortable situations would

strengthen them to take up roles and comfortably execute the duties and

responsibilities of those roles to the maximum standard.

Batuure said this during the launch of the Upper West Regional chapter of the

She Leads Social Movement in Wa. She noted that societal orientations have made GYW to settle for the least and less competitive roles, believing that such roles are meant for females and others are a preserve for males, and hence do not attempt taking on those roles.

“You see we have been socialized to feel that this is an area for women so, it is like our young girls are becoming comfortable with those comfort zones, but if you keep relying on those comfort zones, that is why we are here today"

“You have to adjust yourself to be able to survive in the terrain of those uncomfortable environments, and it is your ability to survive in uncomfortable environments that would strengthen you,” she explained.

She noted that when one is able to survive those uncomfortable situations, it helps them to build strategies and synergies and enhance their problem-solving abilities to overcome difficult situations in the future or when they find themselves in positions.

“Like somebody would say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… so challenge

yourself to do what you know that it would not be easier but you would survive, you would learn on it,” she encouraged.

Batuure also urged parents and guardians to consciously nurture the inherent

leadership potentials of their girl children in their early ages to help them become better leaders when grow up.

She explained that when young girls are entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of their siblings and other household undertakings and they diligently handle them, it meant that they possess natural leadership skills which should nurtured.

“We should give them the encouragement, we should built them right from the

scratch, from the roles we are giving, let them understand that you are not just doing this because you are within the family but there is a possibility of you even doing it for a greater good in the community,” she said.

Nancy Dery, the Executive Director and Founder of Women Powering Possibilities (WPP), urged the girls and young women to learn hands-on skills in addition to the certificates they study to earn in school.

She said that the world was fast-revolutionizing and that there was a time coming where only a school certificate would not suffice for one to gain employment and live a good life, without a skill.

“We shouldn’t just be looking at the certificate we have [but] what we add to the certificate we have, there should be an extra value. The generation we are now, where we are heading towards, let’s know it at the back of our minds that it is challenging …at some point in time, it would not just be your certificate and we shouldn’t dwell on that alone, there should be something adding to you, the girl child; that the challenges ahead of you is tougher than the certificate,” she admonished.

Dery, who was also the NPP Upper West Regional Women’s Organizer, encouraged the girls to venture into skills acquisition including those that are perceived to be masculine so as to set themselves apart, be competitive, and well positioned for work in the skills demand and job markets.

“…and in taking up positions that we think are male-dominant positions; when we are going for such positions, we are not rubbing shoulders with the men, we are pleading with them to support us to bring the better and the beautiful side of us that we think we can do to make it look beautiful,” she further admonished.