By Foday Moriba Conteh
To commemorate the International Women’s Day in the country laced with their objective of teaching, inspiring and training girls on public speaking in order to build in them the sound confidence to be able to voice out issues that are affecting them, The Patriotic Advocacy Network, Sierra Leone (PAN SL) has Monday 8th March 2021 staged the first ever Public Speaking for Girls competition in the country on the theme: “Empower Girls to Speak Up against Teenage Pregnancy, Rape and Gender Based Violence”. The event took place at the Methodist Girls High School Hall, Congo Cross in Freetown.
The first-ever Public Speaking Competition for Girls featured twenty (20) girls from different schools with eight (8) judges.
In her opening remarks, a member of the Board of Directors of PAN SL, Ms. Theriyeh Koroma applauded the leadership of PAN for coming up with such a panache initiative which she described as not only important but a timely intervention geared towards empowering young girls.
She stated that there are a lot of issues affecting girls across the country which these young girls should speak about.
Delivering her statement, Guest Speaker for the event, Precious Amabel Lebby-Smith also expressed appreciation to PAN-SL for organizing such an event which will provide the platform for pupils to speak up on issues affecting them in their societies, adding that public speaking is an essential tool to curb gender based violence in the country.
She noted that women and girls have rich potentials to do better than boys if only they are given the equal opportunity, adding that as the twenty schools battle on the theme: “Empower Girls to speak up against Teenage Pregnancy, Rape and Gender Based Violence” such will surely address some of the issues faced by girls across the country.
At the end of the event, the Head Girl of the Methodist Girls High School, Dolcie Matu Kalie emerged as the first winner, followed by Augustina Oyagha from CALEB Modern High School who took the second position and Esther Tholley from the Freetown Secondary School for Girls taking the third position.
All the 20 participants were issued Certificates of Participation, and special awards were given to the top ten schools and Awards as well as cash prizes were also given to pupils who took the 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions as an appreciation for participating in the said competition.
The Head Girl of the Methodist Girls High School, Dolcie Matu Kalie who took the first position expressed appreciation to PAN-SL for organizing such an important competition which she described as a move in the right direction.
She maintained that the competition has empowered her to build the sound confidence to be able to voice out issues that are affecting her and other girls.
