Vusumuzi Dube
Clementine Phulu, Sunday News Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) and female entrepreneurs in the city today (Wednesday) joined hands in commemorating the International Women’s Day.
International Women’s Day is a global day of celebrating the social, economic, political and cultural achievements of women, and this year’s theme is; “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.”
BCC’s principal gender, safety and health officer, Mrs Audrey Manyemwe said for this year’s commemoration, to them it was not just a campaign, but they had a mission to teach young women to be self reliant.
“We are commemorating this day as the city of Bulawayo and we have a symposium where we are targeting young women entrepreneurs with a bias towards the digital world, the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) world in which they say the internet of things,” said Mrs Manyemwe.
She said they came up with a platform where women either in STEM or as beneficiaries or users of digital technology get to share experiences in growing businesses as they want to see more women partaking in the industry.
“Today we invited girls from 8 to 12 years and we also had ‘Sibo the engineer’ our local engineer as a way of trying to motivate these young girls while they are still at primary school for them to be interested in engineering, science, and technology. So, we have these girls today listening to how other women have started their companies, how they have made it in life and how they can also get into STEM world.”
She said they were catching the girls at a younger age so that 10 years down the line they will see more engineers, Information Technology experts, and chemists, among others who will be women that will make a difference.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter