Supporting Zambia’s girls

Our Girl Child Mentorship Camp at Trident College in Solwezi has helped hundreds of girls from Zambia’s north-western Province. Aged between 12 and 18, the girls are empowered with entrepreneurship skills, mentoring and sexual reproductive health education.

Future skills
Each year more than 100 girls from almost 40 schools in the Kalumbila and Solwezi Districts participate in the First Quantum Minerals’ Girl Child Mentorship Camp at Trident College in Solwezi. During the camp, they are provided with assertiveness, communication, negotiation and study skills with an emphasis on education for sustainable personal and community development.

Health and wellbeing
The also provides sexual reproductive health education and information to empower the next generation of Zambia’s young women make informed decisions about delaying sexual debut, avoiding teen pregnancies, early marriage and sexually transmitted infections including HIV. During the camp, mothers of the girls can undertake training to help support their daughters, and the girls are able to tour First Quantum operations to understand the different career opportunities available to girls and women in Zambia.

Mentorship
Female workers from First Quantum’s Kansanshi Mine who work in a range of positions including engineers and operators are engaged in the program to speak to the girls.

The Girl Child Mentorship Camp is part of a broader Girl empowerment project supported by First Quantum which provides both boys and girls in participating schools with information on sexual reproductive health, in this year (2019) more than 10,000 pupils have been reached, 60 teachers were trained and stakeholder engagement meetings with parents and traditional leaders were conducted. The program is targeted to address Zambia’s continued high rate of teen pregnancy, early marriages and school dropout.