30 Teen Mothers Participate In Women Empowerment Retreat
(ZIZ)– The St. Kitts Marriott resort is the venue for a two-day retreat aimed at empowering women, particularly teenage mothers.
Thirty teen mothers have been invited by the Departments of Constituency Empowerment and Gender Affairs to participate in the event which is being held under the theme “Expanding Democracy through Local Governance and the Empowerment of Women.”
On Wednesday ZIZ News attended day one of the retreat and spoke with a counsellor attached to the Gender Affairs Division in Nevis, Ivorcia Hanley-Browne.
“We learnt of the empowerment programme that they were having today and tomorrow and we thought that it was a very good opportunity for the teen mothers in Nevis to get a chance to take part in this empowerment programme so we contacted Mrs. Etsu Bradshaw-Caines from the gender affairs department and we asked her for the opportunity for some of our girls to come from Nevis because in Nevis we also have a Second Chances Teen Mothers Programme so we thought that this would be a good time for the girls to get some exposure to what was being done at this workshop,” she said.
Tanye Jeffers is serving as a mentor during the retreat. She is scheduled to speak with the teen mothers during Thursday’s session. She said she was pleased to be associated with the event.
“Well I always like to give back to the community and this is a good thing for me to do. I’m a small business but I can do my little part as well so that’s why I’m here and also, I was wondering if any of the girls would be interested in this line of work so I could tell them what I can do to further assist them if this is a dream of theirs.”
Meantime, Ayesha Constable was a guest on Tuesday’s edition of ZIZ’s Upfront. She explained why she was contacted to journey to St. Kitts and be part of the retreat.
“Through my work in Jamaica and my affiliation with what I consider to be geography studies, the person who is now in charge of the Department Of Constituency Empowerment, Dr. Clarke, who I met while she studied in Jamaica, and her knowledge and recognition of the importance of the work that we do in Jamaica: empowering and training young women…and also, having been involved in what is the Jamaican young women’s leadership initiative and as I said, her awareness of that work and awareness of the value it would have to women in St. Kitts brought her to contact me to do something of a similar vein to that here in St. Kitts.”
Among the topics being addressed at the retreat are “Who Am I? I Am Woman”, “Teen Moms And Their Sexual Health”, “Finding Your Voice And Expressing Yourself”, “Creative Arts And Self Imaging”, “Social Graces For The Teen Mom”, “Presenting Yourself…Best Face Forward” and “Who Am I…We Are Teen Moms”.