By DENISE MAYCOCK
Tribune Freeport Reporter
dmaycock@tribunemedia.net
WITH a focus this year on gender equality, the Girl Con organisation held its second mentorship conference at the Regency Theatre yesterday for some 300 girls on Grand Bahama to help prepare and empower them for their transition from high school.
This year’s mentors were Bahamian singer and songwriter Angelique Sabrina, who travelled from Los Angeles; Bahamian entrepreneur and playwright Kerelle Pinder; Italia Williams-Wilson, owner of ICandy Studios; and Jan Martin-Isaacs, president of Jemi Health and Wellness.
The idea for the event – the brainchild of Senate President Katherine Smith – has quickly grown over the past year and is now a non-profit organisation. Girl Con brings high schoolers, particularly girls in their senior year, together to share their experiences and to receive encouragement from successful women mentors.
This year’s theme is “I am, I can, I will” and the organisation has adopted as its focus this year the United Nation’s sustainable goal number five, which is gender equality.
Speaking briefly, Mrs Patricia Minnis, wife of Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, commended Mrs Smith and the Girl Con members for organising such an empowering event for young girls.
“It is really wonderful to be here, and last year when Senator Smith showed me what happened, I promised her that this year I would be here,” Mrs Minnis said.
Mrs Minnis said that she has also been to several Family Islands speaking to young ladies and mentoring them, and encourages women in their communities to mentor young girls.
“I cannot say enough about mentoring, and I encourage those responsible for this (Girl Con) event to continue to do this,” she said.
Mrs Minnis was impressed with the numbers attending who filled the Regency Theatre.
“I promise as long as I have breath I will come (back). You’ve almost outgrown this place, and I am thinking we are going to have to get a bigger venue because I am going to bring more of the girls I mentor, and some from the other Family Islands in the Bahamas, so get a new bigger spot,” she said.
Mark Godson, managing director of GIBC Digital, the title sponsor for the event, talked about the importance of gender equality in the workplace.
He noted that 40 percent of their workforce is female, and that 31 percent of the management team is female.
“So that means we are well on the way, but we still got a little bit to do,” Mr Godson told those attending the conference. “I think events like Girl Con play an important part in empowering young girls as they graduate from high school and get ready for the next level of development.
“We want to support the next generation of innovators, and when girls are given the right tools to succeed they can create incredible futures not only for themselves, but also for those around them,” he added.
He stressed the importance of having good role models, both women and men, to inspire more females in the Bahamas.
The GIBC executive, who is the father of three daughters, said he believes in forming teams with a gender mix balance.
“I have been a leader of many organisations and I formed many teams, and these teams contain women and men,” he said.
However, he noted that when he worked in Saudi Arabia for two years he witnessed gender inequality of women.
In Saudi Arabia, he noted that women are not allowed to travel without a family member; that women are generally not accepted in the workplace, and only few are able to work; and that only last year women were able to drive there.
“I would lead a team of around 70 people and all of those were males, and I can see the difference because in my view women have a different set of skills; they are more importantly generally better communicators and tend to show more empathy, while having many of the business attributes,” said Mr Godson.
“But when you put together all male teams then you can see the imbalance, and that brought home to me more than anything why it is so important for the gender mix to be there because it harmonises and stabilises, and gives opportunity to really provide a high performance team.
“So, since then I tried to balance teams not only based on the skills of individuals, but to make sure the gender balance is right,” he said.
The business executive said that companies should think about creating the right gender balance when they form their leadership teams and boards.
“Equality isn’t a one-sided coin and it needs the support of all. And we at GIBC Digital are willing to support the outstanding efforts of Girl Con,” he said.
Mrs Smith said Girl Con continues to grow not just on Grand Bahama, but throughout the country.
“Groups of women and other organisations are just interested in what we are doing; we are happy today to have Patricia Minnis, the wife of our prime minister, who is here today with students she mentors,” she said.
Mrs Smith indicated that the journey of Girl Con started a year ago, with the primary reason being to encourage, motivate, inspire and empower young girls in the community.
This year, Mrs Smith said organisers have increased the essay competition prize money and have included a trip for the top three essay winners to attend the 63rd sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women and a chaperone, to the UN headquarters in New York in March of 2019.
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