On Wednesday Friday 19 June 2020, twenty-one female principals from primary and secondary schools in Shefa province gathered to initiate the Shefa Provincial Women’s Leadership Network.
Created in 2016, the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) Women’s Leadership Network, has been growing over the last years. Learning from the success of the MoET network and its benefits, Shefa Provincial Education is opening the path by launching the Women’s Leadership Network at the provincial level.
The objective is to benefit at the provincial level of such network providing support, reducing barriers and encouraging women in successfully gaining leadership and decision-making positions. This first workshop of the network developed participants’ skills in understanding the differences between gender equality and gender equity as well as developing and strengthening leadership skills with a gender equality, disability and social inclusion lens. The Coordinator of the Vanuatu Women’s Centre in Vanuatu, Mrs Meryline Tahi, showed her support to the initiative and personally facilitated a session on gender-based violence.
One of the participants commented “I am looking forward to being involved in Shefa Provincial Women’s Leadership Network in the coming years. It helps me a lot in my role as a female primary school principal. Today we shared our experiences, challenges and solutions”.
Shefa Gender and Inclusion Officer, Mrs Dania Rety said, “We are delighted by the success of this very first workshop. All the invited participants took the time to be here today and they are already looking forward to developing their leadership skills. They also know that they can inspire more women in leadership in the educational sector in Vanuatu!”
The initiative was led by the MoET, with the support of the Vanuatu Education Support Program, funded by the Australian Government. The MoET is proud to support Gender Equity and encourage women into education leadership and decision-making roles.