SSDO has organized over 100 workshops for young women SSDO to enhance their self esteem and image. These include interactive sessions on with Self-Esteem, Political Awareness, Interacting with the opposite sex, Health and Hygiene, HIV/AIDS, Anger Management, Career Guidance and Starting and Managing a Business.
These included such topics as:
- I am a Girl and Loving it: Workshops that help girls learn about themselves and appreciate their gender.
- I mean what I say and I say what I mean: A workshop that helps girls negotiate sexual relations and practice assertiveness
- Being comfortable and safe with the opposite sex: A new workshop which SSDO experimented with. These workshops invited young boys and were more like “therapy sessions” where the girls and boys learnt to listen to each other’s facts, misconceptions and stereotypes and together negotiate how women and men can work together in more mutually respectful and beneficial ways.
- Anger management: Helps girls deal with their emotions and reduce violence
- Choosing a Career: A career guidance workshop
- Getting a Job: This workshop helps young women prepare for job interviews and understand better what employers are looking for
- Booking Keeping and Accounting Made Easy: A workshop that helps women learn to manage finances and do better accounting
- Setting up and Managing a Business: This workshop helps young women through the rudiments of starting and managing a business and also introduces them to small practical businesses they can start.
- Women Achievers: An interactive workshop that brings young women in contact with women achievers in the society.
For each of the workshops organised, resource experts were recruited sometimes on a fee paying and sometimes on pro bono basis. The girls decide who should be invited and everyone works hard through exploring and sharing contacts, making phone calls, writing letters, etc, to ensure that the favoured speaker is gotten. However, the success of these workshops was in their very informal, non pedantic, totally participatory approach. The girls are not lectured; instead they are given the space to allow hidden talents and knowledge to emerge and then guided to translate these talents and knowledge into concrete realities.
These workshops have become extremely popular amongst the young women as it is the only one of such programmes in Enugu state, South East Nigeria and has helped many women get jobs and start businesses.
HIV/AIDS:
SSDO has trained over 200 primary School teachers in Enugu and Ebonyi States, South East Nigeria, on HIV/AIDS awareness through a grant provided by UNESCO Nigeria. We have also produced a manual and a comic book on HIV/AIDS for use by teachers and primary school children.
DEFINING THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS WOMEN STAKEHOLDERS IN NATION BUILDING
Prevention Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT)
SSDO integrates Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) prevention education intervention and HIV/AIDS treatment programmes into its HIV/AIDS education training.
Care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA)
SSDO cares and supports people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) through the following:
- Counseling
- Clothing and other food supplements
- Home based care
- Referral
POLITICS:
To encourage women to vie for political positions, SSDO organized a conference on Women and Politics in Enugu Nigeria. The conference produced an action plan for women’s mobilization, which is presently being implemented
