CeSDID, a nonprofit making and non-partisan organization that seeks to create the necessary environment for a sustainable democracy, inclusion, and development in The Gambia through research, advocacy, and training on Friday 18th March 2022 convened a session pondering over the underrepresentation of women in the critical sectors of the economy of the Gambia.
The event held at the London Learning Centre in Brusubi, according to organizers seeks to generate appropriate actions to address the challenges of inequalities that exist in sectors of economic development.
Among the participants include young women and girls who were engaged in discussions that examine how and why women are underrepresented in critical areas of the country’s economic development. And what exact roadmap is needed to change the status quo.
“The resource persons were all women who achieved outstanding career successes in the areas of Medicine, Auto Mechanic, and Electrical and Electronics and Solar. These and many other male-dominated fields in STEM became the center of the presentations and ensuing discussions on them. Each resource person shared her success story with the challenges she encountered whilst journeying through it, especially the ones that came because of being a female in that field. This was followed by a question and answer session between the participants and that Resource Person,” the organizers say.
The organizers say, they are convinced that the presentations will help to inspire and motivate participants majority of whom are young women and girls to pursue fields critical and relevant to the Gambian economy, citing that areas like the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are go-to fields of study.
According to the CeSDID’s Interim Director, Jasong Sanyang, the organization believes that with conscious minds about what other women are capable of doing– their success stories they attained in the male-dominated fields, young women and girls can strive hard to succeed in unprecedented numbers.
CeSDID, he added is with the view that the event will serve as a single platform to break the biases that women and girls face in their struggle for choices they make in schools and their career paths.
Participating female students were drawn mainly from Upper and Senior Secondary Schools in Banjul, Kanifing Municipality, and West Coast Region.
