The RLabs Girl Rising Campaign is part of a global movement. The purpose of this campaign is to empower young girls through education, skills development and even health. The Rlabs women joined the movement by hosting a few events
RLabs Girl Rising Surf day
The RLabs team got together to take all the intern girls on their first ever surf experience. Why surfing you might ask, well for many of the ladies swimming in the ocean was a shared preconceived fear. We wanted them to explore a different setting than what they were usually accustomed to.
The tag line for the event was: “Sink you fears and sail your ideas.” This was extremely symbolic because many of the girls had overcome some of the most horrific situations and yet they manage to encourage other young girls every single day.
It was not only a fun event but it was inspirational too. What we took out of the experience was that every lady who joined us for the surfing event is that all of them overcame one or another fear. The tag line “Sink you fears and sail your ideas” became a reality. After the surfing experience we suddenly had new ideas of how we could empower and encourage young girls all around the world.
We went “Social”. Social? What do you mean social?
We started doing what we do best. We went to social networks and started posting, tweeting and updating inspirational statuses.
RLabs Attends “ICT girls invent tomorrow” conference
On the Friday whilst the interns were having fun in the waves, Suzanne Smith & Rene Parker flew over to Durban to talk about their social enterprise ‘she’s the geek,’ which is a tech review & blog site setup to empower women.
They sat on a panel providing career guidance tips to a very eager bunch of girls who were excited about entering a career in ICT (Information and Communications Technology). The event was sponsored by intel as part of the girl invent tomorrow campaign
The objective of the event was to educate girls and young women about career opportunities available in the information and communication sector and to encourage them to look at career opportunities that had been traditionally male dominated.
During a session, we touched base with Suzanne Smith and this is what she had to say: “The event was very successful. We were asked many questions such as how to setup a blog and how to get exposure through having a blog.It was incredible to be with girls & women in ICT inspiring and empowering each other”.
Girl Rising will be ongoing until the 30th November 2013
