Tomorrow marks a day that aims to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face in the world.
On Oct. 11, International Day of the Girl will focus on promoting girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.
The day has been internationally recognized since 2012, and this year the theme will be ‘a skilled girl-force’.
According to the United Nationals today’s generation of girls are preparing to enter a work force that is being transformed by innovation and automation. Educated and skilled workers are in great demand, but roughly a quarter of young people – most of them female – are currently neither employed, in education nor training.
This is even more evident in the developing world, which is why an Alberta company is partnering with the charity Her International to bring a self-development and leadership training program, titled Hero Girls, to educate young women in the developing world.
The company SureCall, a call centre, launched a corporate social responsibility program in 2016 called GoodCall to find ways to give back to their local community.
Desirée Bombenon, CEO and Chief Innovation Officer of SureCall, says GoodCall was launched as a local endeavour to donate a portion of the company’s revenues each year to non-profits and registered charities.
“On International Day of the Girl, we are proud to announce that we have entered into a partnership with ‘Her International’ to bring Hero Girls to the developing world,” Bombenon said.
Hero Girls was designed by Bombenon through the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, where she attended as a Fellow in 2017.
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Hero Girls is facilitated by Her International a Canadian Registered Charity that was founded in 2005 and based in Kelowna.
The program Hero Girls is a year long and covers topics like entrepreneurship, financial literacy, self-confidence, mental health, and mindfulness. This program is the first of its kind to see participants giving something back to the organization, as each graduate goes on to mentor other girls in the community by attending the subsequent course delivery as a teacher trainer. The entrepreneurial program will be supported by micro credit loans and successful start ups will endeavour to also pay it forward by contributing a small percentage of revenue back into the program.
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The Hero Girls pilot program launches in January 2019 in the region of Dang, Nepal.
Empower Her: Giving 200 Girls + Women a chance to thrive from Her International on Vimeo.
@Jen_zee
jen.zielinski@bpdigital.ca
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