About 50 out-of-school girls in the Kavango East Region took part in the Skills for Girls workshop. The workshop was held under the Ministry of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture (MEIYSAC).
The Five-day training was held at Kayova Village in Ndiyona Constituency. The 50 girls who took part in the training are from all 6 constituencies of the region. The objective of the training is to upskill the girls with fundamental skills, giving them a chance to improve their lives.
"We initiated this programme so that we can give skills to these girls as part of the empowerment. The purpose is to equip the adolescents, young people, with skills in financial literacy, digital literacy, and some basic life skills training. Basically, our plan beyond this training is that whatever we are giving them here, there might be some young people who meet requirements to do technical vocational, for example," says Edward Siwiya, senior youth officer with the Directorate of Education in Kavango East.
The skills for girls focus on girls between the ages of 12 and 24.
The training was prompted by challenges faced by the girl child in the region, ranging from teenage pregnancy, unemployment and high school dropout.
The directorate of youth in partnership with UNICEF initiated the programme last year; this is the second intake.
Dr. Julia Nangombe represented UNICEF Namibia.
"In the end, actually, it's empowerment; it's girls' empowerment; it's empowerment of adolescent girls and young people to actually, one, go back to school, for example, if they have dropped out, if they have a means that now they know their rights, for example, the skills for sexual reproductive health, for example, how to protect themselves against any disease or any infection, and also for them to rejoin the school, or for them to prepare themselves to be able to become young entrepreneurs. It's actually for employment; it's a digital skill that learning is a continual process where they will be able to learn further."
NBC Newsspoke to some participants who expressed gratitude.
"It's like training me a lot, like what I've found out so far as we went through the training. Like, I've gained some ideas and learnt a lot on how to solve problems and how to thrive in life, like it's encouraging."
"This training is very important to me because it is empowering me to get more skills, for me to learn more skills about how to be in the society, and how to engage in business."
"Since I've gained a lot of skills, I'm going to start up a catering business in our village. Since I've noticed that at our village there is a lack of caterers, so I'll be the one to start up that business."
"This programme is very important because it's not only about skills; it's about girls' health. So they taught us about sexual harassment. Other girls don't know about that, that they're being harassed by their partners. So yeah, we learnt a lot of things."
The five-day training started on Monday and ends Friday.