Accelerating Action: A2Empowerment's 2025 International Women's Day Newsletter Highlights
- A2Empowerment
- Mar 8
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 29
International Women’s Day, or IWD, is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.
The #IWD2025 theme #AccelerateAction “emphasizes the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face, both in personal and professional spheres.”
By supporting A2Empowerment, you have helped to #AccelerateAction.
The following quoted actions are outlined on the #IWD2025 website. We’ve listed some ways they are addressed by A2Empowerment and included videos from the scholarship recipients themselves to further emphasize the impact of our program.
A2Empowerment “forges women’s economic empowerment” by expanding training and paid opportunities to female mentors, like Olive, who facilitate the Girl Boss curriculum at monthly meetings with scholarship recipients.
A2Empowerment scholarships “promote the creative and artistic talent of women and girls” by sponsoring young women, like Collette, to attend trade school for fashion design.
A2Empowerment “supports women and girls into leadership, decision-making, business and STEM” by providing post-secondary scholarships to high school alumnae, like Marinite, to attend nursing school.
A2Empowerment is committed to “providing women and girls with access to quality education and training” in all aspects of our programming, operations, and support for girls and women, including those impacted by gender-based violence (GBV).
A2Empowerment plans to expand programming in 2025!
A2Empowerment currently works in partnership with World Economic and Agro Development, or WESAD, to support 99 high school scholarships, 8 post-secondary scholarships, and business support for 27 women in Cameroon. In total, we’ve awarded over 2,350 scholarships since our start in 2008! To learn more about our 2024-2025 program, please visit our blog.
In 2025, A2Empowerment hopes to double the number of high school scholarships, to over 200, and provide business training to a new cohort of 25 GBV survivors!
Our successful experience with WESAD this past year encouraged us to renew our partnership and open our scholarship program up to new applicants! Our current 11 mentor groups, which include six alumnae of our program, are in the process of helping us identify young women who have dropped out of high school or are at high risk of dropping out. Once applications are vetted by WESAD and ranked by A2Empowerment, mentors will announce awardees and facilitate monthly meetings during the school year to bring together 15 scholarship recipients per group. During meetings, mentors continue to be guided by the Girl Boss Basics curriculum, developed by Launch Girls, which offers “entrepreneurial and work-readiness mindsets and skills specifically identified to equip adolescent girls to take charge of their future and successfully transition from school to work.”
WESAD, led by Dr. Helvecia Takwe, will work with A2Empowerment to identify a new region of Cameroon for our next business training cohort of GBV survivors. Last year, our inaugural cohort of 27 survivors of GBV were selected from a field of over 600 applicants in the Santa Subdivision, an area of conflict in the Northwest Region. Trainees received intensive, three-month Girl Boss Professional business training that culminated with a pitch to the community. These entrepreneurs then received seed funding to start their businesses. They will continue to be monitored and trained for two years, through mid-2026, to help ensure business success.
A2Empowerment invites you to contribute to our growth!
Please consider becoming a member of our community, by donating and signing up for our bi-annual newsletter, if you aren't already supporting us. Donations allow us to continue A2Empowerment’s mission to provide educational scholarships and support to girls and women so that they may increase their knowledge and empower themselves to lead healthier, more productive lives.
We are proud to be an all-female organization that provides stipends to our mentors and leaders in Cameroon. On the US side, we are led by volunteers who strive to keep operational costs low so that a majority of funding goes towards programming in Cameroon.
As part of our community, we hope you feel proud to celebrate #IWD2025 for the ways you #AccelerateAction by supporting A2Empowerment!