Educational institutions that are supposed to be the hallmark of enlightenment many times fuel gender inequality. It shows in the big decisions, chore assignments, and in little conversations. To achieve gender equality, we have to promote it in our schools. Here are ways we can: 1. Encourage female leadership. Don’t automatically choose male leaders or select male candidates for leadership. Encourage girls to volunteer and participate in leadership. 2. Focus on abilities, not gender. Assign roles and responsibilities like the class captain, etc to people who are qualified. 3. When you have both male and female senior prefects, don’t say that the boy is the number one citizen of the…
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Dashed Hopes – A short story to commemorate Internatonal day of education
Panting, Miriam sat under the mango tree, hands on her jaw. She had just run out from the room adjoining the parlour from where she had overheard her father discussing with the yellow-stained teeth pot-bellied short man, Mr Lazarus. Tears rolled down her eyes as their conversation played in her mind: “My son will like her,” Mr Lazarus said, “She’s perfect, with the right curves in the right places.” Her father, who would on a normal day cringe at such statements and even sternly warn or assault the speaker, had tossed his head back and laughed shamelessly. After recovering, he had said, “She’s not only…
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INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL CHILD 2019 -WORDS ON MARBLE -LETTER TO A YOUNG GIRL
Today is the International Day of the Girl Child and the theme for this year is GirlForce: Unscripted and Unstoppable. This is a letter from my heart to every young girl born or living in a patriarchal society like ours. I know that your identity and destiny has already been foretold even before your existence. Written down with seemingly indelible ink in the hearts of unfeeling and immovable men and women who seek to suppress and fit you into a mold that has been created for you from ages past. Although you are young and still trying to find yourself, they have started projecting these narratives on you – telling…
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INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL CHILD 10 DAY COUNTDOWN
TEN DAY COUNTDOWN In present-day Nigeria, the advocacy for the education of the girl-child has gained astronomical audience and enviable attention. Why? No one wants to be labelled unsympathetic towards the girl-child in a bid to realise her dreams, with or without her voice defining who she wants to be. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question remains: when a girl-child is offered or given education, should she be offered a role or guided to choose her own roleplay in the society? At this year’s International Day of the Girl-child, the paradigm will shift from limiting the girl-child’s expectations to providing her with rubrics that will guide her into choosing herself, at all times,…
