Theme: “A centenary of working together towards sustainable women empowerment and gender equality”.
Program Director
Partners UNICEF, UWESO, SITA
Techno-girl Alumni
Ladies and gentlemen
It is indeed an honour to finally host this gathering during this month as we commemorate and celebrate the centenary of 100 years of the Anti–Pass heroic march led by Charlotte Maxeke in 1913 under the theme “a centenary of working together towards sustainable women empowerment and gender equality”.
While significant strides have been made to empower women and promote gender equality, women still bear a disproportionate burden of the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment. Young girls find themselves at the end of this cycle and are left vulnerable.
A gap analysis was conducted and it identified that young girls in South Africa have high school education but are unable to further their studies in tertiary institutions. Another gap was the choice of subjects that most young girls are channelled into therefore minimising their participation in science and technology related fields or what we call STEM careers.
We are pleased that we have reached this level of facilitation and implementation of this program to a phase of the techno-girl alumni. This Techno-Girl Alumni program seeks to ensure continuity and sustainability in partnership with other government departments, private sector and state institutions towards the empowerment of the girl child through tertiary education and job placement. We have solicited partnerships with different stakeholders in terms of their roles and responsibilities to support the techno-girls.
This continuity is only made possible by a successful Techno Girl Job Shadowing programme which has seen close to 4000 girls being exposed to the work environment for this success we extend our gratitude to partners who responded to the call to empower the girls and created opportunities for schoolgirls, aged between 15 and 18, to follow a structured job-shadowing programme during school holidays.
The Techno Girl Alumni Association that we are launching today will serve to:
- position the programme as an effective and high performing response to promoting the uptake among women of STEM careers;
- track the impact of the programme over the medium and long term;
- create a pool of role models to inspire future programme beneficiaries;
- provide support and motivate programme beneficiaries during the cours of their studies at higher education institutions (HEIs) and further education and training (FET) Colleges;
- track the completion rate and placement of beneficiaries in STEM careers.
The strategic intent of the Alumni Association is to provide a supporting environment for Techno Girl alumni members at Higher Education Institutions (HEI). Furthermore, the Association will ensure that past Techno Girl beneficiaries reinvest their time and experience to mentor and encourage beneficiaries still in the programme, either at school or HEI.
South Africa has made commitments through the Constitution, various pieces of legislation and international conventions to respect, promote, protect and advance the rights of women. We all have a duty and obligation to honour these commitments. I therefore call upon all of us public and private sector to promote, protect the rights of women, children and people with disabilities in our country.
Allow me to acknowledge, in particular the contribution of the Gauteng City Region Academy and Transnet. Since the rollout of Techno Girl in 2009, the GCRA has endeavoured to provide bursaries to all qualifying Techno Girls who had applied for admission to Higher Education Institutions for study in STEM fields. Was it not for this funding, a significant number of girls would not be in a position to fund their studies.
Transnet has distinguished itself as job shadowing host organisation with the single biggest intake of girls. An astounding 1000 girls attend job shadowing at Freight Rail and 300 at Transnet Engineering. Agreement has been reached with Transnet Port Terminals for the placement of a further 180 girls. Moreover, Transnet National Ports Authority has committed to host 140 girls across their seven ports. Over the course of the next few years these girls will join the Techno Girl Alumni programme and be empowered to access relevant and in demand careers. The value of this contribution to equitable human capital development is immeasurable.
