Story By: Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria || Sanatu Zambang
As part of the activities to mark 8th March as International Women’s day, Swida-Gh and Sanatu Zambang team up and held a pre panel discussion centered on female leadership at the studios of Sanatu Zambang on 27th February 2021.
The panel discussion was moderated by Khadija Abdul Samed, the Gender and Communications Manager of Swida-Gh while the discussants on the table included Mr. Abdul Rashid, Media and Communications Officer for Nosaac, Mavis, School Prefect for Zouzugu basic school and Shakira, Girls Prefect for Islamic Senior High School. The audience for the roundtable discussion was made up of students from both Zouzugu basic school and Islamic Senior High School.
The topic for the panel discussion was ‘’women in leadership, building the spirit of leadership in young girls to enhance gender equality’’. The student leader’s panelists talked about the positive and negative comments they get while vying for the positions. Two qualities stood out for them in the process of being elected as prefect thus intelligent and confident.
While the students talked about the challenge they face as leaders in their respective schools, Miss Khadija and Mr. Rashid also spoke about how workers in the development area can do to dismantle the stereotypes when it comes to women leading.
Another important issue that all panelists agreed upon was the scrubbing off GP position in our schools. According to our speakers, that position reaffirms that misogynistic saying that women are supposed to be leaders for women.
The discussion also highlighted certain issues from our audience especially from the male gaze who still see an assertive woman as bossy, controlling, disrespecting and women in higher positions are likely not to get men to marry them.
