The Basketball Artists School Foundation (BAS), with the support of The ONE TEAM organization, recently hosted a girl’s empowerment day on Friday, 30th August 2019.
The second of its kind to be hosted at the BAS Premises in Katutura, the program targeted girls aged 12 to 16 years old. The day hosted 50 female participants who took part in the fun and learning that place on the day.
The is an initiative run under the mentorship of the BAS Senior Females who are youth aged 17 to 21 years of age. Focusing on everyday issues such teenage pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse, sexual predators and more, the girls’ empowerment uses the experiences of the various mentors as testimonies on how to overcome these.
The main target is girls from the Katutura community as this is where the mentor has personally grown up. As a way of teaching these participants that their environment is not a definition of who they will one day be, the mentors themselves live in these communities.
Sharing her story on Gender Based Violence was Mentor Tiffany Khoeses who shared that being able to speak about her overcoming of this incident in her life, she has become a better person.
“Having gone through this battle as an individual who was supported by friends and loved ones, has urged me to be that supportive person for these girls as well” She said.
Also, a mentor sharing her story was Petrina Aron who said that she was happy to be able to have this platform to speak on her personal struggles of self-image and identity of who her true self is.
“I personally believe that the participants were so reactive seeing that all the mentors are people who reside in their neighborhoods thus making us more relatable” She added.
One of the participants, Mirjam Erasmus, a grade 7 learner at People’s Primary School (PPS) said: “My friends and I had a fun time attending the first event and that is why we came back for the second one. We had fun but we also learned a lot at the end of the day during the life skills topics”.
The event just like the first one before it incorporated a set of team-building games to create a comfortable space for all the girls and ended off with a life skills session during which various mentors each shared their testimony. As a thank you to each participant, the mentors give the girls a take-home item to remember the event by, and sticking to the winter theme, each girl received a pair of socks.
The Basketball Artists School Foundation is an after-school program which caters for education, life skills and basketball. Run under the motto “Education First, Basketball Second”, the program focuses on building the children of the Katutura community into well rounded individuals through sport. Find out more on Facebook or Instagram by searching Basketball Artists School.