This community impact outreach was observed in order to commemorate International Women’s Day held on the 8th of March, 2020 themed ACHIEVING AN EQUAL FUTURE IN A COVID-19 WORLD day with female teens and youths as our target audience.
Previous studies have shown that thousands of teenagers and youth are suffering from low self-esteem. Especially in Nigeria with a lot of cultural bias and expectations in respect to the duties of females. For example, the Tiv culture believes that if the wife has not been beaten by her husband, she isn’t fully married yet and he doesn’t love her. Meanwhile, other cultures believe that the man is the head and whatever he wants must be done in the home regardless of the feelings of the wife.
These different mindsets have been indoctrinated into the girl child from childhood and did not just start at adulthood. This outreach led by The Sapphires Development Initiative sub-group in Akure and consisting of Miss Jesutofunmi Binuyo, Mr. Emmanuel Ojekunle, Miss Olabimpe Omisore, Miss Oluwatosin Lawal, Miss Funmilayo Ajakaiye and Miss Oluwafunmilayo Lemboye which took place on the 8th of March 2020 was aimed at changing this narrative and enlightening the ladies especially young girls on self-esteem and the benefits of having a healthy self-esteem and possessing positive values as individuals. They learned about growing and maintaining healthy self-esteem.
The students also learned about self-evaluation, self-praise, and how to learn positively from mistakes and failures. They also learned the importance of quality education, leadership ethics, and how to put what they have learned to good use to become a person of reference in the nearest future. To show them the possibility that women with healthy self-esteem and positive values become people of noteworthy influence. The project leads and volunteers got them to familiarize themselves with different female leaders in various sectors of the economy who are doing great things.
“After the teachings, we answered some impressive questions. Impressive because we were glad about their passion towards learning to be a positive influence in society.
And like they say young minds are always ready to learn” said Miss Jesutofunmi Binuyo.
In the end, over 1900 of these ladies were extremely eager to hear more about how to grow their self-esteem and they were motivated to become someone of notable influence in the community with an exceptional character.
Finally, some memos on the life journey of some of the women we had taught them about were shared with them so they can always have something to refer to until they can fully imbibe the values and characters of a responsible lady of society. At TSDI, gender equality is a tenet we hold so dearly, and educating these ones is just one of the ways we achieve this dream. In support of the year’s theme, we chose self-esteem as our forte knowing that one of the qualities of a great leader is confidence and having the right self-esteem, this way achieving great feats is not just a vision but a reality. Happy International Women’s Day tribe-mates 
