Eugene Ngole Masango: Women's empowerment simply means women's rights to know and do. A typical case I want to look at concerning Women's Empowerment is the case of women in the community in which I work in Cameroon.

Here, during this year's International Women's Day, our theme was investing in women and girls. We have to invest in rural women and girls in order to empower them with the economic skills that will enable them to generate income for themselves, their families, and their communities in general.


In some communities, we have seen how young girls and women who were not able to continue with their education become good secretaries both in public and private places. This has enabled them to come out of poverty and crisis to economic stability. That is not all. One can now see women who move into positions of responsibility in their jobs due to the skills they have in information and communication technology. However, not all are accepted, like the case of this woman, who tells her story:

"I started my job in an international organisation here in Yaounde, Cameroon, as a librarian. Then I was sent for training in Douala, Cameroon, in Information and Communication Technology, where my specialty was in Information Management. I was later sent for further training to Switzerland in website building and came out as a webmaster.

On coming back, I was given the position of Information Officer in the organisation. I built a functional website for the organisation that is still functional. Due to my skills in Information and Communication Technology and my performance both at my job site and internationally, I was highly in demand and a focal point for my employer's head office in Europe and other African countries, where I was always called up for international conferences.


However, since I'm a woman, this was not accepted by my employer, who kept on questioning why I should be the person needed for international meetings and conferences when there were men in the organisation.

I know it was because I knew my job and did it perfectly, and that this was appreciated by some organisations in other countries and my organisation's head office. This brought a lot of bitterness and jealousy from my employer and other male colleagues, and it finally led to my dismissal.


My job was given a male colleague, who was not the least bit up to the task. Despite the fact that I was sacked from the organisation, this male worker who took over from me keeps calling me to ask for help on how to go about some tasks. Right now as I am talking, I have no job and I have a big family to look after."

It is possible to empower all groups of women. Women can be empowered at all levels or class, be they rural, urban, married, single, working, or unemployed.

I would like to add that you can empower women in different timeframes and at various levels. I think I should talk here about three different ways you can empower women: You can empower women in local economic issues, political affairs, and social development.