Reybanpac, Wong Foundation and Plan International promote female empowerment and leadership

Reybanpac and Wong Foundation, together with the NGO Plan International, have launched the mentoring program ‘Women Empowering Women’ with the commitment to promote female empowerment and leadership.

This inspiring program provides 35 young women from various communities in the province of Los Ríos (Ecuador) with mentoring that gives them tools and opportunities to advance their life projects and strengthen their professional skills, under the guidance of Reybanpac and Wong Foundation female collaborators, who participate as volunteers. They will play the role of mentors to the adolescents during the three months of this project. The first session took place on March 1 with a virtual meeting in which guidelines were provided for the young women to start building their life project.

Ruth Alvarado, from the Reybanpac team, is one of the volunteers in the program. She says that her desire to participate was prompted after learning more about the indicators of gender inequality and violence in Ecuador.

"It is very exciting to be able to share experiences from my personal and professional environment and technical knowledge in my area of work in order to contribute to the growth of a young woman so that, in turn, she can positively influence her environment and have an impact on more women", she remarked.

According to the Ecuadorian Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), as of June 2022, 18.5% of young Ecuadorians between the ages of 15 and 24 are neither studying nor working. Women predominate in this group. 26.5% of Ecuadorian women in that age range do not study or work, compared to 11.2% in the case of men. "This is due to the fact that women must dedicate a large part of their time to caring for children and the home. This is compounded by other problems, such as gender violence and sexism, which undermine the dignity and opportunities of women, especially those who live in rural communities", explained Ricardo Romero, director of Wong Foundation.

"With this social responsibility program, which we have called ‘Women Empowering Women’, we seek precisely to empower these girls so that, together, we can achieve equality", he concluded.