Young people are on the frontlines of the struggle to build a better future for all. More than ever, we must build young people’s skills and ensure that skills gained are recognized and certified, for today and the future to find paid jobs or set up their own enterprises.
Access barriers to the world of work has continued to pose a huge challenge, especially for women and girls. Gender gap has continued to be visible in learning skills for life, work, and sustainable development.
Young girls like Angel are pushing the boundaries and proving that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is gender blind and doesn’t discriminate. Angel Osuji has not only found her passion in ICT as a graphic designer, she has taken it up as a responsibility to advocate that girls consider exploring a career in technology.
“Before I took the graphic design training with Poise in 2018/2019, I had no prior knowledge of ICT. I didn’t know I had a passion for solving problems on the screen through design waiting to be unlocked. I am optimizing my potential in tech every day. I have come to realize this fact - skills acquisition for a female is beyond craft,” said Angel.
Oxfam in Nigeria through its Work-in-Progress project, financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands is providing Nigeria youth with skills development and ensuring that skills gained are recognized and certified. We are also accelerating start-ups and offering business development services (BDS) to impact-driven small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) so they can employ more young people – improve the demand side of the market – and deepen their social and environmental impact.
“Besides the training I received in graphic design, I was also exposed to some elements of gender in the program which has been very helpful in building my confidence as a lady, especially one pursuing a tech career!
“Today, I am not afraid to aspire and pursue my dreams. I can boldly say that I have been able to build an unshakable optimism in my ability, speak up when I need to, leverage the value of mentorship, use my voice, raise my hands, and be confident in my skills and strength,” said Angel.
Just like Angel, Oxfam through Work-in-Progress is drawing attention to the critical need for more girls and women in the ICT sector. With technology playing a role in all kinds of careers, from art and history to law, primary teaching, and graphic design, learning tech skills at a young age will set girls up for economic independence.
“My two cents for any girl aspiring to pursue a career in the tech industry will be, ‘go for it girl! You are doing a great job! Never stop, keep going and keep pushing! You won’t regret a bit of it!” said Angel.
From Angel in Nigeria to many more girls in Egypt, Somalia, and other parts of the world, we believe that through our work with partners, we can ignite a passion in girls and young women to pursue STEM education.