KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 19 — Girl2Leader Malaysia, an initiative to nurture talents and develop future leaders among young women, has today launched the #VolunteerToLead campaign to boost female youths in developing social projects.
Its founder Nurainie Haziqah Shafii said the campaign is open to all young women who would like to submit their proposals, and the selected winner will be awarded a RM5,000 grant to kick-start their project.
“We are calling for women between the age of 16 to 25 years old to submit their proposals for any social projects, such as engagement with certain communities like in rural areas or the Orang Asli people.
“Aside from awarding the grant, the winner will also be given a mentoring session and they will be guided throughout the programme,” she said when met after the launch of the #VolunteerToLead programme, which was held in conjunction with the International Day of the Girl Child 2019 at the Berjaya Times Square Hotel, here today.
Nuraini, who started the Girl2Leader campaign last August, said she hopes to see about 100 young women participate in the programme, which is open until November 17.
The announcement of the winner will be made at the end of November.
When asked whether the programme would be an annual event, Nuraini said it would depend on the feedback received from the programme.
“We want to target in training more young women on leadership, and in the future, we hope to bring some changes to what we are doing now such as shifting our focus or subjects,” she said.
With almost 400 members, Nuraini said she hopes to see more participation as young women should be educated and guided more in leadership roles in various areas.
“All this while we have been talking about women at large but we want to focus on the young ones. We want those in this age group (16 to 25 years old) to be aware of such initiatives, programmes, and opportunities so that they can educate themselves on leadership skills.
“Leadership does not mean it has to be only in political parties. It should be on different levels including entrepreneurship, corporate, and others,” she said.
Earlier, patron of Girl2Leader Zuraida Kamaruddin, who is also the Housing and Local Government Minister, had officiated the event, witnessed by 150 of its members and several NGOs, including Voice of Children chairman Sharmila Sekaran, social activist Syed Azmi Alhabshi and Bar Council member Goh Siu Lin.
“Since we launched Girl2Leader last year, they have been very active in conducting the #SpeakToLeader sessions, which saw engagement with prominent leaders and corporate persons.
“Now we are moving to another level in which we have the #VolunteerToLead programme, where we want to create different groups in expanding the initiative,” said Zuraida at a press conference after the launch earlier.
