Business Engage non-profit organization has organized the first ever Gender Mainstreaming Awards ceremony to celebrate and reward persons actively accelerating equality in their place of work.
The event which was held at the Holiday Inn in Accra, highlighted the impact of gender mainstreaming in Africa
It was hosted by one of Ghana’s finest MC’s Lexis Bill, and was the 10th Accenture sponsored gender mainstreaming awards ceremony.
The country representative, Dr. Rejoice Wodomdedzi Foli, an astute Senior Project Manager at Absa Bank and CEO of G-Wealth Consult, welcomed and thanked everyone for making it to the event.
In her opening remarks, she stated that GMAs initiatives enable us to identify organizations and leaders who actively work towards making Africa the gender hub from which we can export stories of success and impact states “We celebrate gender mainstreaming champions from East, West and Southern African organisations and individuals recognised by the judges as being at the forefront of advancing the business case for gender mainstreaming,” she adds.
Business Engage aims to do this by inspiring change via the multitude of stories we accumulate year on year,” she said.
According to her, they are also doing this to encourage private sectors to buy into achieving more meaningful representation of women in the mainstream of business.
“The awards are part of a much bigger initiative in gender mainstreaming being driven across Africa, one that encourages men to also be part of the movement,” she emphasized.
Moving on, she disclosed that this year, they
had a 60% increase in the number of entries, incorporating some wonderful stories and the growth of companies and the sustainability of programmes during this period is evident by the companies who will be awarded champions, category winners and finalists this year.
Chief Executive at Business Engage, Colleen Larsen who was also at the ceremony stated that their organization celebrates gender mainstreaming champions from East, West and Southern African organisations and individuals recognised by the judges as being at the forefront of advancing the business case for gender mainstreaming.
She also indicated that responsible business executive for Accenture in Africa,believes that issues of gender mainstreaming organizations must move beyond simply talking about it and create a workplace environment that genuinely supports the advancement of women and promotes equality.
Dr. Rejoice added that the individual categories, especially the Positive Role Model Award, have proved to have been a huge success therefore, they added a category to reward the female leaders in their various sectors.
“A big thank you to our naming sponsor, Accenture, Silver sponsor JSE, and Assupol, East Africa Breweries Ltd., Imperial, RMB and TigerBrands. Our sponsors play a big part in an event such as this,” she stated.
She went on to thank the judges because she believes that an awards ceremony is not the same without the judges giving off their time and wisdom.
“We appreciate EABL, the 2021 East Africa Gender Mainstreaming Champion; TigerBrands, the 2021 Southern Africa Gender Mainstreaming Champion; and EY, the 2021 Africa Gender Mainstreaming Champion, congratulations on all you have achieved and thank you for being amazing ambassadors for the initiative during the 2022 year. We look forward to having you involved as we expand even further and to see what else you accomplish,”she addressed.
