EmpowHer is an initiative by a group of female professionals with a focus on empowering young ladies in tertiary institutions with some skills required to overcome career-limiting constraints and progression.
It is a collaboration of higher education professionals who have related with undergraduates for over two decades each, as an administrator or academic, within Nigeria and internationally. Women in emerging economies like Africa face numerous challenges that limit career achievement and progression. These career-limiting constraints include competition with the boy child for family resources to get an education, “octopus woman burden” status – the multiple traditional roles that compel women (as a daughter, wife, mother, aunt, niece, cook, sweep, wash-woman, cleaner, role model or pastor), to be everything to everyone; workplace challenges (such as bullying and sexual harassment), the pressure to work harder to prove competencies, ‘Ph.D. (pull her down) syndrome’ versus boys’ club, access to resources for personal growth and the need to sacrifice personal career development opportunities, among others. In the course of their engagement with undergraduates, they observed that the challenges faced by female undergraduates, in particular, include; competition with the boy child for family resources to get an education, multiple traditional roles that compel women to be everything to everyone, sexual harassment, pressure to work harder to prove competencies, limited access to resources for personal growth and the need to sacrifice personal career development opportunities, among others. These challenges make mentoring imperative for women to mitigate some of them effectively.
The pilot programme provided mentoring opportunities for female undergraduate students in two universities in Nigeria- The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) and Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria. A cohort of participants was recruited in a competitive process to participate in a one-day workshop on the respective campuses. The conveners shared personal experiences and some strategies that may mitigate a few of the challenges encountered by women and explored opportunities for career advancement together. Hopefully, replication will take place on other campuses in Nigeria. Funding was through personal contributions by the conveners.
