Africa-Press – Botswana. First lady Kaone Boko on Sunday joined other First Ladies during the 29th Ordinary General Assembly
of the Organization of African First Ladies For Development (OAFLAD) on the sidelines of the AU conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday.
The event held under the theme: Building on Beijing; First Ladies Championing Women’s Leadership and Rights through African Heritage, took place at the Julius Mwalimu Nyerere Peace and Security building at the AU headquarters.
Addressing fellow First Ladies, Ms Boko stated that First Ladies must encourage young girls to be strong and take up leadership positions in society.
“Ours is a continent that is rich in culture, history and tradition. Let us encourage them to take up leadership positions,” she said.
She said First Ladies were in better stead to use their influence to build business capacities on the girl child.
Ms Boko said empowering girls in the formative years of their lives not only made them sound businesswomen but ensured that they got weaned from economic and financial dependency on their male counterparts which oftentimes made them susceptible to abuse.
She outlined several programmes that she ran in Botswana under the umbrella name, Mpepu which means to carry a child on one’s back primarily because it is focused on children.
Her audience learned however, that the programmes transcended child care as it also catered to both the youth and the women to empower them.
‘’We have a problem of malnutrition in my country and have as such decided to build pre-schools in remote areas and have feeding programmes to arrest the possibility of subsequent stunted growth and cognitive disabilities.
Moreover, Ms Boko said the intention was to have gardens in such schools so that the children were given fresh produce for maintenance of good health.
She outlined, age-appropriate sexual education to clamp down on rising sexual abuse cases in Botswana, fully equipped with a toll-free number that victims and whistle-blowers alike may use to seek assistance.
Issues of hygiene, free pads for school-going girls and education for both boys and girls to co-exist in harmony with the view to curb gender-based violence that is on the
rampage in Botswana other First Ladies learned, were among the many programmes under the Mpepu program.
The incoming OAFLAD President and first lady of Sierra Leone, Ms Fatima Maada Bio commended outgoing leadership for doing a stellar job of advancing the cause of children and women and pledged her commitment to advance the vision of the organisation.
She promised her leadership would push for the implementation of the new 2025 to 2030 strategic framework that prioritised four pillars namely; health, education, gender-based violence and women’s economic empowerment.
“Your legacy will continue to inspire us and we are more than ready to leverage tools to ensure that we build healthy and economically empowered women in Africa,” she said.
OAFLAD is an advocacy entity where First Ladies of Africa seek to leverage their unique position to advocate for policies that make health services accessible and laws that boost women and youth empowerment.
First Ladies are expected to engage in various community-level activities to sensitise the community and create awareness of health risks and policies in a view to contribute meaningfully to the health and well-being of children, women and the youth.
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