South Sudan’s Inaugural Summit Seeks Empowerment of Women

With an advocacy for women empowerment that has been ongoing in South Sudan during a difficult time in the country, the female folks are now shouldering responsibilities to ensure they are part and parcel of development.

South Sudan is a male dominated country with the roles of women in nation building usually shifted to the backyard.

Over the weekend, Trinity Energy, a South Sudanese business entity organized a summit, “The Trinity Energized by Excellence Women’s Summit (TEEWS)” the first ever of an annual event to celebrate women’s efforts across different fields and to offer a platform for networking and mentorship to young women.

The summit held on Saturday attracted women politicians, entrepreneurs as well as leaders from different other sectors.

Trinity Energy, a leading employer of women into its ranks is also an active advocator for the 35 percent leadership quota availed for women by a peace agreement which instituted a transitional government in the country after years of crisis.

Jemma Nunu Kumba, the speaker of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly was a key discussant at the event and highlighted the challenges women face in South Sudanese societies and advocated for more involvement in leadership.

“We are aware about the challenges the majority of our women are suffering in the villages from many factors, climate change with impact on the environment, people are displaced, people are hungry,” Kumba told the summit.

“We have to rise above them all. Our constitution is very clear about the participation of men and women in this country, we have international conventions, we have the Maputo protocol, all legal instruments are there, no woman should feel inferior in this country,” she said.

“We are equal citizens; we are equal partners in development and in government.”

Lack of empowerment in leadership was identified as one of the problems in South Sudan and a peace agreement signed in 2018 provided for provision of 35 percent roles of women in leadership positions.

The transitional government created by that peace agreement opened up to the provision, providing key positions to the women.

Trinity Energy’s summit was organized to include such women and others in various leadership positions to advocate for more involvement of women, Mariam Dangasuk, the head of programs told The Juba Echo.

The summit attracted about 200 women at different levels of leadership including in politics, non-government organizations, university students and those in women and local leadership initiatives.

The women share their stories so as to inspire fellow women in the steps they have taken to reach heights, Dangasuk said.

“As Trinity Energy, we believe that it is important to have women at the table and in key decision making positions,” she said.

“Trinity employs women by giving them employment and we are already empowering women financially but also Trinity has Social Corporate responsibility and we always support women-led activities. “

Eva Yayi,  the Executive Director and Co-founder of Go Girl ICT Initiative expressed the need for activism for women participation in technology oriented activities.

“As Go Girl ICT initiative,  an initiative that was founded by young women in technology,  engineering,  and mathematics,  we mentor primary and secondary school girls and we look after role models,” Yayi said at the summit.

“We do training in digital storytelling by using programing-they talk about health, girl child education, marriage and a lot of topics, ” she said.

“We have so far trained over 100 students; we have managed to impact up to 500 students.”

Yayi said “sometimes women and girls are looking for motivation,  if you keep on discouraging them,  they cannot be able to pursue their dreams. “

Ngonga Rebecca aka Rebecca Tery,  a musician also called on the need to keep helping women in any way to be part of development.

“I do music as my side hustle and I saw there are somethings I need to communicate-women are being overlooked, ” Rebecca said.

“We have to help women by forming groups that can be able to support women, for example establishing institutions that can lend money to women to start their own businesses. “

According to speaker Kumba, no woman should feel inferior in South Sudan. “We are equal citiz