The first edition of the EQWIP-HUBS Women's Club of Dakar

Early July 2017, Jean-Marc Cormier, a CECI communication advisor and Julie Noirfalise, from the NGO EQWIP-HUBs organized a meeting between Canadian volunteers stationed in Senegal. We came from a variety of backgrounds: EQWIP-HUBs, SUCO, UPAID and of course, Uniterra / CECI. This opportunity allowed us to get to know each other, socialize and consider the possibility of having meetings or other types of exchanges of a more professional nature, while sharing a meal at Le Jardin de l’Amitié (The Garden of Friendship). Following these exchanges, I was contacted by ladies from EQWIP-HUBs to do a training for the Women's Club of EQWIP-HUBs. The Women's Club is a brand-new initiative to bring together young Senegalese women to train them on different themes, in terms of leadership, entrepreneurship, self-image, etc., while giving a feminine to these subjects. Since the training needs had not yet been clearly defined, I offered them to do a needs analysis technique, the nominal group technique (NGT). This technique, which I used to use when writing my master's thesis, makes it possible to establish a list of indicators to be classified in order of priority. On Thursday, July 20th, we held a meeting. Present were a few girls from EQWIP-HUBs, some young Senegalese women, a SUCO volunteer and myself from CECI. During this time, I facilitated the identification of the trainings that could potentially interest a young Senegalese Women Club. In the end, we selected 11 training themes to be given in the coming months. From this list, we prioritized 6 themes to start the Club trainings, in order of priority. I wish long life to the Women's Club of EQWIP-HUBs in Dakar, hoping that the trainings and exchanges that will take place there will enrich Senegalese women's youth.