Beauty queen empowers women

The reigning Miss Africa USA 2016, Frances Udukwu, has unveiled her pet project called The Lead Girl Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, which aims at empowering women and girls from the age of 18.

She told Saturday Beats that women empowerment is a smart initiative because it will give them financial independence to enable them to make choices, drive growth and inspire their families and communities as a whole.

The beauty queen added that her goal is to utilise her platform as the reigning Miss Africa USA to empower young women to achieve their dreams knowing that an empowered woman is a blessing to an empowered and inspired community.

The foundation, according to her, has four core focuses which are vocational skills training programme, enterprise development programme, mentoring woman in business programme and code school for formerly incarcerated ladies.
She said, “The Lead Girl Foundation envisions a world where women and girls have equal opportunities, as well as capital, skill-set and network necessary to become financially independent, resulting in a more secure future. Financial independence gives women choices and enables women to spend more on their families, drive growth in their economies and inspire others in their communities.”

She also said she came to Nigeria to begin work with select project sites in the country such as the Holy Rosary College, Enugu, embark on a university tour and have an interactive session with female executives of student union governments.
Udukwu said seeing Nigerian women with so much energy and passion good enough to engender change in their various communities inspired her vision to float the foundation, which she hopes to use to help women channel their various energies into much more profitable and sustainable ventures.