The Corporate Service Corps (CSC) team from IBM in partnership with the Peace Corps visited Ashesi to lead a workshop on women empowerment under the Let Girls Learn initiative. Other partners included Pyxera Global, Techaide and the Ministry of Gender and Social Protection.
According to the Let Girls Learn initiative, 62 million girls around the world are not in school, and the chance to get into school becomes harder as they get older. Started by Michelle Obama, the First Lady of the United States, the initiative is to help expand access to education for girls and remove barriers that make it impossible for them to attend school. This workshop at Ashesi marked the first collaboration between IBM and Peace Corps in support of Let Girls Learn.
Girls from various junior and senior high schools attended the workshop alongside students from Ashesi who acted as co-facilitators. In her opening address, Angelina Kyeremanten-Jimoh, Country Manager of IBM, shared her growth and journey to becoming a top executive at IBM, encouraging the girls to be confident as women and to work hard and excel in school.
“We are here to celebrate women, to celebrate the young girls and to empower them to be bigger than they ever thought they can be,” she said. “Being a woman is not an impediment. If you take advantage of being a woman, you will excel. We should encourage our young women of today that they can aspire to be what they want to be.”
The workshop included a series of presentations interspersed with speed mentoring sessions with IBM executives and Peace Corps volunteers, for the girls and Ashesi students in attendance. These exercises were aimed at exposing the girls to a variety of career options and paths, and also provide them with leadership towards their careers.
“This is in celebration of young girls to aspire them to be bigger than they want to be,” said Gina Tesla, Director of Corporate Citizenship Initiative at IBM. “What we ultimately want to achieve with the girls is to raise more value; and also see how that can be extended and sustained after we leave.”
The workshop also provided an opportunity for networking and interaction between the IBM executives and the Ashesi community. For students at Ashesi, they were able to gain firsthand exposure into career experiences at a leading technology firm.
“We're moving into an era where through research, big data analytics and more, we gain insights to life around us,” said Business Administration Lecturer at Dr. Esi Ansah, who facilitated the workshop. “It was important to plug into that world through this program and the close exchanges with the IBM execs. It was also to give students the exposure to career models and professionals in the business and technology circles.”
