Monrovia – Klubo Kennedy is a cosmetologist and a mother who graduated from the past cycle and is a proprietress of a saloon.
She boasted of training other women in her community and encouraged the new beneficiaries of the program to make adequate access of the training received.
On Monday, 198 females of the WestPoint, a slum community in the country, received certificates in several training ranging from food nutrition, catering, cosmetology and tailoring.
At the program, there was an exhibition of several rugs, dolls, African clothing embroidery and pastries all done by the graduates.
The 5th cycle graduation exercise is under the project “Women training and integration” which was established in 2008 for the purpose of developing war affected women associated with conflict trauma and vulnerabilities, who are victims of social economic exclusion following the Liberian civil crises and to contribute to improving the living condition of marginalized women for social integration and sustainable livelihood.
According to the Red Cross, the project is socially included intervention that aims to restore the dignity and values of vulnerable and marginalized women in gender balance environment in communities of Montserrado and to promote social economic women empowerment.
“The project now targets women and girls 13-45 years as primary direct beneficiaries and the spouses and children as the secondary direct beneficiaries, eight key criteria are used for the selection of the direct beneficiaries including ex-combatant, single mother/self-supported, economically vulnerable, commercial sex workers, rape/ domestic violence victims/ witness extreme violence/ illiterate women and girls, and drug users.”
Ramon Garway, serving as guest speaker spoke on how they could use the new skills to make a change and achieve gender equality and empowerment for women and girls in the most vulnerable communities.
The senior project manager on women economic empowerment UN Women-Liberia said women and girls are important actors of change for the national development in Liberia and should take a key role in decision-making processes to ensure inclusion.
“Every young woman and the girl child has the basic right to education, at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, they have the right to quality education that prepares them for full employment and decent work. It is the sole responsibility of the Government and its development partners to ensure the availability of affordable, accessible and quality education for all women and girls,” Garway said.
He commended the Red Cross (WIN) for building the skills of women so that they can make the difference in society and eventually contribute to national development.
Mr. Garway assured that the UN-Women will collaborate with the graduates financially and the Liberia National Red Cross for increased investment in accelerating efforts to advance the right women and girls in post Ebola Liberia through the WIN project or other similar projects.
The graduates were dressed in Red Shit with the inscription “5th Cycle Graduate… Women don’t sit there; do something positive with your hands”.
Serving as a proxy for the Independent Interim Chief Executive Officer, the Red Cross Director of Program Ambullai Perry said the organization was proud of the graduates.
He disclosed that the graduation is in collaboration with the International Commission of the Red Cross, which has been a major support to the project.
“We are happy that we are supporting women, the Red Cross is here to help communities and the Government of Liberia and we are happy for that mandate given us, today we are happy for the people of West Point that have given their fullest support and this is what we need, community support so that we can easily partner and transform the lives of those community dwellers and also we hoping that we can extend the program to other communities soon,” Perry said.