GoGirls ICT Initiative

 Who are you? (Here, what do you want people to remember you for? Your name and the course you are doing, and a personal slogan)

   My name is Gaso Grace Pascal. A year one student at Starford International University/ College doing Computer Science. My slogan is everything happens for a reason.

 What inspired you to be part of the mentorship with GoGirls ICT Initiative?

 Learning advanced computer skills such as scratch programming inspired me to work with GoGirls ICT Initiative

 What did you learn from the mentorship of the girls in Primary and secondary school?

 I learned that problems within our society, we as community members can find solutions to them ourselves other than waiting for the government, e.g. if the roads in my area (Rock City) have many pole holes, we as members of the area can put soil in them to level the ground.

What memorable experiences do you have of the girls, or what excited you about the girls?

 The most memorable experience I have had with the girls is how they came up with the storyboard materials for the murder crime scene using the things within their environment, which showed their creativity and skill.

 What next for you, or what are your aspirations?

What is next for me is to complete my school and keep attending educative and life-changing workshops to uplift the citizens of South Sudan to make our country a better place.

Who are you? (Here, what do you want people to remember you for? Your name, the course you are doing, and a personal slogan)

I’m Buay Moses G, a University of Juba computer science student. I appreciate basic things and am a calm person. I also love technology and volunteering in the community.

My job in technology started long ago. I recall that our home in Sudan had a lot of devices, so I spent a lot of time figuring out how to utilize them, which turned into a passion. I completed most of my schooling outside the country and recently came back in 2019, and I don’t want to go elsewhere.

I discovered the Go Girls ICT Initiative in 2022 and applied for mentorship. Since then, many beautiful things have occurred, for which I am grateful. Thanks.

 What inspired you to be part of the mentorship with GoGirls ICT Initiative?

 Science and technology interests. Assisting and instructing others, exchanging knowledge, and experimenting. My desire to make a difference in my community motivated me to sign up for the mentorship.

What did you learn from the mentorship of the girls in Primary and secondary school?

 Empathy. I’ve grown to feel and comprehend what the other person is experiencing. Now, this supports my decision-making.

Recognize that every person is unique. There is no one size fits all solution.

I’ve discovered that to change someone else, and I must first alter myself.

What memorable experiences do you have of the girls, or what excited you about the girls?

 Mercy and Vibia, two equally smart primary school kids, had one of my most memorable interactions. Programming in Scratch was being learned.

Although they did well in class, they had one flaw: they had no sense of teamwork and preferred to work and study alone. We, the mentors, recognized this issue and developed a resolution. This applied to any activity in which we divided them into teams and demanded their participation.

Unexpectedly, towards the end of our last training session, we could see a significant change in how they interacted with their classmates. However, there were times when it was busy.

 What next for you, or what are your aspirations?

I want to become a programmer and create various software, including websites and apps.

In my community, I want to be a changemaker who finds solutions to problems.

Finally, I’m excited to mentor and motivate my mentees and other young people to grow into better versions of themselves.

NAME: ALEX ALBINO JUMA MENDIRI

COURSE: ARCHITECTURE ENGINEERING

PERSONAL SLOGAN: I LOVE MY DREAM

What do you want people to remember you for?

I want to be remembered for helping the young people in my nation to reach their goals, for example, mentoring them, being a role model, and inspiring many.

What inspired you to be part of the mentorship with the GoGirls ICT Initiative?

What inspired me more when I first joined the program was the activities related to what I wanted to do in my career. Most interestingly, working to help the young girls in my community gives me more confidence and courage to participate fully in the initiative. Furthermore, the reception by the GoGirls made me have the heart to contribute to the young girls.

What did you learn from the mentorship of the girls in primary and secondary school?

What I learned during the mentorship I gained experience in how psychologically to identify the problems the girls might be facing, e.g., During class time, when I give questions, some of them have an idea but they doubt it, while others don’t have, so according to the experiences that I gained, I was able to identify from them who has the idea and who doesn’t have, etc.

What memorable experiences do you have with the girls?

The memorable experience I got with the girls was at the last event when they presented the project to their parents. It was brilliant, which gave everyone hope that they had gained some knowledge during their mentorship program.

What next for you, or what are your aspirations?

I want to be phenomenal in my career in this country.

Name: Baraka Kenneth America

Course: Bachelor’s Degree Development studies.

Slogan: impossible is possible.

What you want people to remember you for.

I want people to remember me as a prominent public figure, which gives all that it takes to help young girls whose efforts, and the cultural and other factors in our community have dimmed contribution. Helping them realize their rights is what I wanted to dedicate myself to, advocating for women’s and girls’ rights in the communities they live.

What inspired you to be part of the mentorship of girls in primary and secondary school?

The world is on the verge of eliminating all the forms of discrimination against women and ill manners of systems of power and control in which girls and women are treated as inferior and subordinates, so the inspiration here is that I felt it is the right time that I should offer my contribution, helping the girls lay the foundation of their future that cannot be intimidated by the men or cultures which do not allow them to discover they potentials.

So I am passionate about working to bring change, peace, and development in our society which is only realistic with the contributions of these young girls and women in the community.

What did you learn from the mentorship of the girls in primary school and secondary school?

Working with the girls during the mentorship program has been massive and great. What I meant was that the girls are passionate and empress initiative, which is quite sure has sharpened their thinking capacity, for instance, their ability to identify day-to-day challenges that they are facing in the community, hence coming up with a genuine and bold decision, which may give them chances to respond to their needs and priorities.

Self-choice, the girls know their priorities and should only be facilitated to reach where they want to be.

Moreover, they are the young lads getting such mentorship programs. They are on the right pole of bringing massive change to our community.

 What memorable experiences do you have with the girls?

The memorable experiences of the girls have qualities such as,

• Open-minded
• Optimism
• Objective
• Participative.
• Creative
• Working together.
• Recognizes each other’s weaknesses, rather than assuming that they are homogeneous, hence building and helping each towards achieving common goals.

What next for you, or what are your expectations?

Working with the girls for a few months of the mentorship gave me more strength and willingness to help the young and advocate for their rights in the country and be an agent of change, and that also gave me the courage to do Gender and Development (GAD) in my master’s program, inshallah.