The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

acadet@tribunemedia.net

OVER the past several months, the STRAW Inc Centre for Young Women has been deep in the trenches of youth development work as well as in its laboratory, designing and tailoring “what works and is relevant” programming for Bahamian adolescent and teen girls.

STRAW, which stands for Strengthening, Transforming, Restoring, Affirming Young Women, is a nonprofit, non-governmental community based youth development organisation.

It is constantly restructuring its programming to remain on the cutting edge; it aims to be purposeful yet passionate, and dedicated to having a finger on the pulse of the current issues and needs of young Bahamian women.

One of the organisation’s most popular events, the annual Girls Leadership Conference, will take place for the 11th time this Friday at the Meliá Nassau Beach Resort, from 8.30am to 5pm.

The conference will be held under the theme “Chess Not Checkers”.

“Our bold conference is unlike any leadership training that teen girls and young women will have ever experienced,” said Therena Cunningham, executive director/president and founder of STRAW.

“Participants will learn the importance of discipline, self-confidence, self-esteem and the overall rewards of achievement. It is the premier gender specific leadership educational, networking and training event for adolescent and teen girls throughout New Providence and the Family Islands.”

Ms Cunningham will once again serve as the conference’s host, leadership coach and chief greeter for the event.

At the conference, girls will get to use their voices, feel important and create action plans for personal success. Sessions will include breakout general group discussions and entertainment; basically everything a girl’s conference needs, according to Ms Cunningham.

When it comes to planning for and producing the Girls Leadership Conference each year, Ms Cunningham said it is exciting to meet, interact and engage with hundreds of female students who are aspiring towards academic excellence and personal success. In fact, over the past ten years, the STRAW founder has personally met every single participant, and for Ms Cunningham, who works as a youth specialist, this is truly important.

She said the leadership potential of young women is exposed at the event and hosting the conference gives STRAW the opportunity to harness and help them cultivate it.

“When I was growing up, I attended private schools, I was involved in many clubs and held leadership positions in extracurricular activities, however, at that time I noticed that there was a void in the Bahamian society relating to the amount of positive activities geared specifically for the education of and support for girls,” Ms Cunningham said.

“The value of being a girl was ignored or not deemed as being a matter of priority, even securing funding for girls’ activities was difficult. It was told to me that the girls were not a problem and did not need help. We were insulted and turned away. I later learned that girls were quickly being labelled as at-risk and troublemakers and it would only be a matter of time when they would fall in the category of being under-served as well. The prognosis was not good. Since then, Bahamian girls have been marginalised, disrespected, abused, taken advantage of, rejected, and thus they successfully rebel. Instead of defying the odds, they are now satisfying them.”

Coming this far with hosting the conference for 11 consecutive years feels like they have “made it over the hump”, said Ms Cunningham. She, along with her executive team and advisory council, have worked hard over the past decade, starting from scratch and ground zero as a no-name grassroots group to becoming one of the most dynamic and well respected gender specific youth development organisations in the Bahamas.

“We are becoming popular internationally. Even though it looks easy, it was not easy, but God has been good to us. We did not have hand-outs or were privileged; God favoured us. He touched the hearts and minds of people to allow us in their space, their churches, their homes, their campuses and their lives,” said Ms Cunningham.

“We have sacrificed and dedicated many hours towards the success of this organisation, especially when we did not have to but did it as a labour of love and concern for the people and future of our country. We are also proud of the fact that we are not a chapter of nor a spin-off of any foreign entity; we are indigenous Bahamian. However, we still have to prove ourselves and gain the trust of many institutions such as the church, the government, corporate Bahamas, the Bahamian community, and of course the girls we serve.”

For all those that attend, Ms Cunningham said they can expect to laugh, be moved to tears, and gain ideas and techniques from leadership experts that will immediately boost their own leadership effectiveness. She said the girls and young women will be challenged to be authentic, to be true to themselves and be honest with those who genuinely care about them.

“Hosting this annual event is important to me, not only as an organiser, but as a community-based youth worker for over 15 years,” she said. “The conference setting is the perfect platform to promote our training, level of expertise, other exciting, stimulating programmes, community partnerships and opportunities for future youth development. Some organisations have a graduation, others host banquets or award events, well STRAW Inc has its annual Girls Leadership Conference where we applaud ‘all things girl’ and make a big deal out of it.”