“Promoting Gender Equality through Women Economic Empowerment and Skills Development”, is the theme of the workshop that was held in Yaoundé to celebrate the International Women’s Day, March 2022 edition by NO LIMIT INTERNATIONAL under the leadership of Co-Founder, Orlyanka TANTCHOU. The workshop was free of charge and 48 women registered to take part in this important personal development event. The purpose of the 2 days’ workshop was to equip women with life skills that are essential to their sustainable development.
According to UN Women, women’s economic empowerment is central to realizing women’s rights and gender equality. In fact, empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps in the world of work are key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By organizing these workshops and empowering women to be economically independent, NO LIMIT INTERNATIONAL contributes and helps achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 1 on ending poverty; Goal 2 on food security; Goal 3 on ensuring health; Goal 5 on achieving Gender Equality; Goal 8 on promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all; and Goal 10 on reducing inequalities.
“It was important to organize this workshop and provide the opportunity to women to acquire knowledge and skills that are essential to sustainable livelihoods. In fact, we want these women to be confident in their life skills and become financially independent so that they can feed their families while boosting the country’s economy. To be independent, women need the know-how and that was the purpose of this activity. Today, they learned the economic benefits of small-scale aquaculture and the minimal requirements in terms of start-up costs and land. They also learned how to turn waste into treasure by recycling daily wastes into biomass charcoal and ultimately sell all these products for financial gains. Most importantly, they learned the importance of financial literacy and the value of making informed financial decisions. What’s interesting with these various activities is the fact that they can produce from home and earn income while attending to their household responsibilities”. Orlyanka TANTCHOU
The workshop was conducted by 4 instructors who provided training modules on 4 topics areas including: waste recycling; female leadership and personal development; financial literacy; and fish farming. According to Mr. Martin Bekono, lead instructor of the workshop “The workshop went very well and I’m very happy to hear their positive feedback at the end of the workshop in terms of how much they’ve learned and the value of the workshop in their economic empowerment”.
The workshop was attended by several leaders of women’s associations who voiced their satisfaction at the end of the 2 days seminar. This is the case of Mrs. Esther YOBO, Head of the SOA women’s delegation, “Women lack knowledge sometimes to proceed and gain independence. What we’ve learned today will help us create fish farming start-ups in our communities and make a push for funding our projects’ expansion. We learned how to be self-employed”.
Irene Kamwa, another president of a women’s network association who also participated in the workshop said “Today, we learned how to convert daily wastes into fuel briquettes and use it to cook for our family without having to purchase fuel; sell our briquettes that we make to earn income; and also preserve the environment by removing potential hazardous materials from the streets. In the next few weeks, we will create micro recycling units and get on our way to be self-sufficient and economically empowered ladies”.
Another participant, Mrs. NDZANA highlighted that “My favorite part of the workshop was the recycling of waste materials into valuable products that we can sell and feed our families. I’m very thankful to NO LIMIT INTERNATIONAL for organizing this workshop free of charge with very knowledgeable experts”.
Indeed, waste is a potential resource. During the workshop, we taught participants how to transform wood and paper waste into fuel briquettes. We wanted the participants to realize that daily wastes can be recovered, recycled, and reused at every procedure of production and consumption.
