Story: Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria | Producer, Breakfast Live Show
Youth Opportunity Partnership Programme, changing the stories of young rural girls
Youth Opportunity for Partnership (YOPP) is changing the narratives of young rural girls in communities in the northern region where they operate. YOPP is building the capacity of these young girls to be assertive, engage in the developmental activities of their communities and also help them to be a better version of themselves through the programs and activities that they hold in those communities.


One of such girls who is a beneficiary of their program is Sumani Meimuna. Meimuna is the gender officer for Tibong and the president for Young Rural Women Movement. Speaking to Sanatu Zambang about YOPP post Girls summit, Muna talks of how YOPP rescued her from journeying to Accra to engage in Kayaye after writing her BECE.
For Meimuna, writing BECE meant the end of her education due to the limited opportunities she thought existed in her community that were available to her. The only option she thought existed for her was to go to Accra and engage in Kayaye business.
Her father tried to discourage her from going to Kayaye saying if she goes, then she would have to pay her school fees. Meimuna saw Kayaye as the only place to make money and was still insisting to go to Kayaye until the chairman in their community spoke to her.
According to her, the chairman discouraged her by saying the organisation, YOPP, that she is part of frown upon Kayaye. He told her about YOPP mission and how they want to empower the next generation of young girls in the community to be vocal and take part in the developmental agenda of their communities.


This explanation convinced her to stay in her community to continue with her education. According to her, if she did not get this opportunity from YOPP, she would have had two children by now which means, her education and her dreams to one-day hold a position of power in her community would have been over.
Currently, Meimuna with the help of YOPP is undergoing training with her community assemblyman so that she can learn the in and out of being an assemblywoman for her community. With the capacity training she has had with YOPP, Meimuna wants to help tackle teenage pregnancy in her community while also raising awareness on sexual and gender-based violence.