..harps on Gender parity

Using the Bemore Empowered Girls Foundation’s alumni as a point of contact, the wife of the Governor of Ondo State, Chief Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, held an interactive virtual meeting with girls to celebrate the 2023 international day of the girl child in the state.

The Ondo First Lady and Founder of the BeMore Empowered Girls Foundation, a platform where over 3000 girls have been trained and equipped with skills in ICT, Solar technology and Entrepreneurship, congratulated every female child on the occasion of the international day of the girl child.

She explained that the day was initiated by the United Nations General Assembly, adopted in 2011, and has become an annual celebration since 2012, aimed at raising voices against marginalisation of the girl child.

While welcoming participants to the meeting, which she described as a testament to the growth of technology usage among girls, Mrs. Akeredolu emphasised the need for every girl to be aware of her fundamental human rights, hence, the essence of the day.

“The world knows how marginalised the girl child could be, and it is a day to promote the rights of the girl . is also a human right. If you know what human rights are, you will know that every child is entitled to those rights and of course, raise awareness for girl children to know that there’s gender inequality.

“If you don’t have that awareness, you will just live your life in ignorance and wouldn’t know that, somehow, your rights are being trampled upon”.


A leadership training consultant who was the keynote speaker, Mrs. Pamela Elekwashi hinted that the girl child suffered most of the unfavourable decisions in the family and the society due to gender disparity and how the female gender was portrayed as inferior.

She called for concerted efforts to bridge the gender disparity gap in every sphere of life by giving girl children equal opportunity to maximise their innate capacities without any form of marginalisation or relegation.

Commenting on the theme of the discussion, “Our time is now-Our Rights, Our Future”, the keynote speaker identified the Bemore Empowered Girls initiative as one of the platforms through which girls were being groomed to rise above stereotype, and affirmed that the initiative had enormous success stories.

In accordance with the main purpose of the meeting which was to allow girls’ voices to be heard, as earlier said by the First Lady, some girls, including Christiana Madu, Marvelous Jegede, Similoluwa Ojekhoa, amongst others, shared their success stories about how the Bemore Empowered Girls foundation impacted and changed their lives for better.

They mentioned the skills they acquired during the two weeks summer bootcamp of the Foundation and how it had earned and still earning them financial opportunities.

Mary Agidi
Special Assistant on Media
(Office of the First Lady of Ondo State)
October 11, 2023