Since 2020, Good Governance Africa (GGA), through its flagship Africa Girl Child Dialogues (AGCDs), commemorates the United Nations’ International Day of the Girl Child through career mentorship for the continent’s girls. Targeted at girls between the ages of 17 and 24, the AGCDs model is emerging as a game changer in empowering the African Girl Child through increased access to career information.
GGA’s enduring partnership with the Mail & Guardian has been an effective avenue for marketing and dissemination. In addition, the partnership with the Boston Media House has provided practical, life-transforming bursaries for some of the girls, offering a model for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 5 (Gender Equality), 10 (Reduced Inequality), and 17 (partnerships and goals) worth replicating and scaling up.
Figure 1: A collage of the day’s activities.
For the Zimbabwe AGCDs chapter, GGA partnered with Heights Events Management for a practical career mentorship experience. The Heights Events Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Siyenanisiwe “Sena” Ndebele, shared online with the continent’s girls her rich, multi-layered first-hand experience of navigating into and growing within this often challenging yet rewarding sector. She emphasised the importance of shadowing experts and volunteering as critical pathways to professional development.
Beyond Ndebele’s inspiring online delivery, she supported the realisation of the AGCD’s mission and vision through highly subsidised rates. This is in line with her inherent commitment to serve her community, as well as her long-held vow to girls’ and women’s empowerment. Due to her generosity, the girls from Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Bulawayo, got a personal feel for the diverse aspects of her business. It was a day of enriching dialogues amidst practical experiences of Heights Events’ catering, décor, branding and importantly, a learning tour of her impressive Kensington Ranch vision.
The enriching, real-time engagement over sumptuous meals, courtesy of her top-notch catering services, was mentorship in practice. Critically, her offer of the Kensington Ranch for the venue enriched this career mentorship experience, as the girls, who had been encouraged to dress in pink, learnt about décor and branding within a venue intentionally themed in pink to recognise breast cancer awareness. Within this inspiring setting, she shared the story of her career journey with the girls, some of whom were faced with uncertainties about what their chosen career paths and passions stand to bring. She emphasised the importance of hard work and continuous re-skilling in a fast-changing, highly competitive environment.
On-site career mentorship at the Kensington Ranch Events Hall
AGCDs and girls’ and women’s health
The AGCDs realise that girls and women’s health is critical to establishing successful careers and businesses and nations’ realisation of sustainable development. Each year, the AGCDs underscore this critical aspect by addressing issues such as women’s mental health and physical well-being, as well as menstrual health and hygiene, among other issues.
On menstrual health and hygiene, Palesa Pads is a consistently committed presence and partner of the South African chapter of the AGCDs.Through their demonstrations, girls around the continent learn about the use, economic benefits, and health benefits of reusable sanitary napkins, an important part of arming them for effective menstrual health and hygiene management.
Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo chapter of the AGCDs has, since 2024, continued in the critical role of amplifying the voice for cancer awareness. Since 2024, Liana Alufaneti of KidzCan Zimbabwe has been present to deliver on the important subject of childhood cancer. Her presentation has armed the girls and young women with awareness of the need for early detection, diagnosis and treatment, factors which can prevent the needless loss of lives. This year, the Zimbabwe chapter of the AGCDs expanded its cancer focus and contribution by building the dialogue’s branding and girls’ dress code colour scheme in recognition of the October breast cancer awareness month. Next year, an expert breast cancer partner will be included to deliver on this important subject.
Growing the AGCDs’ reach and impact
The Africa Girl Child Dialogues offers an effective career mentorship model worth extending to the rest of the continent. It is currently being implemented in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe, where GGA has a footprint. In this extension, context-relevant, localised, and therefore country-specific experts would go a long way towards catering to the girls’ peculiar environments. A key aspect of the AGCDs that should be retained and scaled up is the Boston Media House Scholarship initiative.
This game-changer takes the AGCDs beyond the day’s event talks, affording some of the girls life-changing learning opportunities. More partners should come on board. Future planning to expand reach and impact should also map solutions to ensure that the girl child with little or no access to the internet or digital devices, such as a cell phone or laptop, benefits from these critical dialogues. All these growth proposals largely hinge on adequate funding that can enable access for girls, particularly in hard-to-reach and often underserved rural communities.
The diverse and growing AGCDs partnership network can offer the much-needed shadowing and volunteering launchpad for its alumnae. Shadowing and volunteering are the golden threads emerging through various panellist testimonies. Many, including Ndebele, highlighted how being afforded these priceless opportunities, even without much immediate material reward, was the key that enabled them to achieve that critical ‘foot in the door’ to their dreams. The rich cast of speakers underscored the importance of career mentors in a girl’s life.
The AGCDs experts’ selection is designed to offer comprehensive mentorship in career development and character development to arm the girls with life problem-solving skills that ensure successful careers and businesses. The AGCDs continue to inspire by exposing the girl child to various opportunities. It should increasingly expand to different African countries with country-specific panellists who are actively involved in their local communities. Lastly, the momentum of each annual career sector focus should be anchored by instituting an alumnae network, useful for monitoring and evaluating the AGCDs’ impact.
Sikhululekile Mashingaidze entered the governance field in Zimbabwe while she was a part-time enumerator for the Mass Public Opinion Institute’s diversity of research projects during her undergraduate years. She has worked with the Habakkuk Trust, Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR-Kenya), Mercy Corps Zimbabwe and Action Aid International Zimbabwe, respectively.
Duduzile L Nyathi
Duduzile Lorraine Nyathi is passionate about community development, youth empowerment, and mental health advocacy. She holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (full-research) from the University of South Africa with a focus on the lived experiences of male victims of female-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV). A YALI RLC Southern Africa alumnus, Amnesty International Youth Power Action alumna, and PsySSA student mentor, she has led initiatives that promote inclusivity, human-centeredness, increased life satisfaction, peacebuilding and conflict resolution while tackling gender-based violence and advocating for the human rights of underserved communities.
