The Shalom Faith Development (SFD) Foundation, an NGO at the forefront of girls'
development, has held a capacity building and empowerment summit for female
students of selected Senior High Schools in the Upper West Region.

The summit dubbed, 'She-Connect Summit' and themed, "Inspiring girls to greater
heights" saw the female students being mentored on essential areas of their
developmental lives through a series of sessions.

Held from July 11 to 14, 2023, the summit benefited hundreds of girls in the Lassia-Tuolu, Jamiat Islamic Girls', and Wa Senior High Schools in the Upper West Region.

Selina Ayimbila Aboyinga, the founder and executive director of the SFD
Foundation, said the summit was geared towards empowering the girls to successfully navigate through the Senior High School cycle with ease and be informed about what lies next ahead of their completion.

She added that it was to help the young girls to lead responsible lives and stay safe through adolescence, a life stage that is fraught with many challenges, especially for girls.

"This summit is geared towards inspiring the students, especially the girls. As they're in secondary school, we want to empower them the best way we can so that they grow to be better people in the future", she said.

She explained that the summit was the maiden edition in the Upper West Region
following the SFD Foundation's relocation of some of its activities from the Northern Region where it had been operating.

She indicated that the feedback from the summit was encouraging and she expressed optimism that the subsequent editions would be expanded to include other schools.

"We have had a lot of good feedback, the way the teachers are able to let us
understand that it is a timely intervention for, especially those who are going out, and then the inputs and messages that have sent across is really good for the students. And with this, we are inspired more to do more, so we believe that going forward, we would increase the number of schools", she explained.

Programs Coordinator for SFD Foundation, Esther Aboyinga expressed optimism that
the summit would empower the girls to be goal-oriented and set realistic life goals and work hard at achieving them in order to become meaningful members of the society.

"We feel that if wee're able to encourage them to be goal-oriented, set their goals and targets well, they're able to aspire well, they're able to pass their exams well and excel in future, I think it's a good thing to do", she said.

She reiterated that girls and young women needed to be empowered and argued that
mere access to education should not be misconstrued to mean empowerment but that
empowerment goes beyond being in the four corners of a classroom.

"We may say that once they're in school, they're already being empowered, but a lot more needs to be done. Even as they're in school, some of them are not privy to the needed information, they don't have courage, some of them, their self-esteem is down, some of them are confused, peer pressure, drug abuse, a whole lot

"There are a lot of things that are going on, especially within the second cycle
institutions and I think that organizations like us, we need to step up our game to come into these schools", she explained.

Some students of the Jamiat Islamic Girls' SHS who participated in the summit said it was very useful to them in that it has opened them to a number of things that would help them to build better lives and futures.

"We've learnt that no matter how life is but never give up. I learnt that there is no shortest way to get into success, if you want to get success, you've to work hard to earn what you want to be in future", some students shared their
views.

The summit had inspirational personalities of diverse professional backgrounds who mentored the students and included Daniel Osei Tuffour, Executive Director of Leadership Excellence Group; Maria Johana Yuorpor, Regional Cordinator of Northern Development Authority and Founder of Mara Foods and Closet; Dr Felicia Naatu, Lecturer at the SDD UBIDS; and Hassan Ibrahim, Branch Manager of Fidelity Bank; among significant others.