This year’s Women Day is celebrated under the theme centered around ‘breaking the bias’ calling upon the general public to be consciously aware of gender inequality and concert efforts to call it out.
It is against this background that a Strategic Leadership and Business Consulting Firm operating in Rwanda, Gate Consultancy Group, has organized a training session for female university students to address different biases centered on gender stereotypes.
Recently, the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF) revealed that the the private sector has not been playing active role in women empowerment conveniently.
It is therefore of crucial significance to see the commitment of a private company such as Gate Consultancy Group whose vision is to equip people with leadership skills and practical tools to help them grow and impact their workspaces and communities.
Salma-Habib Nkusi, the Chief Executive Officer of Gate Consultancy has said that the main objective of the training is to remind these young university women that they are capable, need confidence to benefit from available opportunities and receive support from different initiatives.
“These young students should know that they are not alone, that they have chance to learn from successful women who went through similar living conditions,” she said.
Nkusi revealed that university is among advanced stages of education where students need to be familiar with different realities and learn from others’ experiences, complementing what they acquired in class.
“There are things that are not acquired from school like personal development. We targeted university students so as to connect them to successful people who can assist them.”
The event also featured panel discussions with different speakers including Denise Munyana, the co-founder of Right Seat, a Human resource consulting firm. She urged them to break the bias and change their mindsets.
“Girls are capable. That is why you must seek and fight for what you want to achieve. Challenges will always be there, but it is up to you to confront them from a different perspective to achieve envisaged goals,” she said.
The Country Head of the Mastercard Foundation in Rwanda, Rica Rwigamba who was also among panelists, took the opportunity to tell the girls that the journey had many challenges and advised them to shun fear and learn from experience.
“People always make mistakes, you cannot be 100% perfect. What is most important is to learn from them and remain committed to reach your destination,” she said.
Some of the students attending the training thanked the organizers of the event noting that they learnt a lot from the speakers.
Ange Umuhire, a student in Accounting at the University of Rwanda-College of Business and Economics (CBE), said that the training is greatly important for university students to learn new realities.
“As people who are still pursuing University studies, we learn a lot but there are still things out there we need to learn . This kind of training encourages us to be fearless and learn,” she said
Umuhire continued to say that the greatest lesson from the training is about how to develop self-confidence to meet one’s goals.
Ntua Endia, a Cameroonian student in International Business and Trade at the African Leadership University who attended the training session disclosed that gender equality is apparent in both Rwanda and her country.
“Many women have stepped up and gone out there to make an impact in our society, some are even in decision making seats. The training reminded me that as women, there are many things we can achieve and we can go to even greater heights than we think,” she said.
She went on to say there are still some things the government of Rwanda must do but that women themselves have to play a greater role.
Endia also advised women in Rwanda to take advantage of opportunities made available for them.
“The Government is playing a big role in women empowerment but all these efforts would be in vain if women do not seize the opportunity,” she noted.
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