Miss Skills Contestant Takes Skills Development Gospel To Secondary Schools

The finalist of Miss Skills Festival 2023, Sendy Forlemu has taken the gospel of skills development, entrepreneurship and nation building to about three secondary and high schools in the Buea Municipality.

Amongst the schools were; Government Bilingual Grammar School Molyko, Summerset Comprehensive High School, and St. Therese International Bilingual High School.

According to the impactful pageant, the need to build skills from the base is what will change the narrative of youths from being job seekers to job creators and employers. “With the official permission of the various school principals, I carried out an inclusive campaign and drilled students on the importance of embracing and specialising in entrepreneurship, avoiding hate speech and advocating for young girls to be engaged in administrative duties which could help them earn a peaceful and comfortable living, and save them from societal ills like gender-based violence, hatred, rape, prostitution, idleness and poverty. So, I thought it necessary to talk to the students who are in secondary schools so that they can start knowing what they need to do and start doing it.”

Sendy Forlemu receiving a thanking gift from GBS Molyko school prefects

Nzometia Rendis, a form five student of Summerset Comprehensive high school, like others from different academic institutions attests to the impact of the campaign; “I will be more serious with my little plantain chips business that I usually do while concentrating on my studies and loving my school mates and people in the society even if we come from different regions”.

On a campaign tour in St. Therese International Bilingual High School, she was given the chance to have an interactive talk with over 500 students and staff on the assembly ground where the students’ doubts were cleared.

Asked by the press what she thinks is the most important thing to teach young girls today, she said; “The most important thing we should be teaching young girls today is entrepreneurship and leadership. It is something that has been lacking in young girls and women for a very long time not because we don’t want to but because society has labelled women to be just that way. I think we are the most powerful being in the world and we should be given every opportunity to strive to earn a living and build our nation economically and administratively.”

She urged young girls and boys to believe in their unique skills, develop, embrace and exploit common skills like cake baking, décor, tailoring, cultural regalia stitching, writing skills, and many other innovative skills, saying that “no one was born without a skill”.

“If young women believe in themselves and know that they are unique and become entrepreneurs, they will be able to deal with peer and societal pressures they faced today and be productive”.

Aside being a model, Sendy Forlemu is a journalist at The Post Newspaper, Cameroon, a final year student in the University of Buea, winner of Best Writer Award 2023 from the department of Journalism and Mass Communication in the same University and the Editor-in-Chief of the 8^th edition of the Chariot Magazine.