Corporate Hands: Girls Get Vital Training

480 adolescent mothers will benefit from special sessions on career development courtesy of the ScotiaFoundation and the Jamaica Junior Achievement. This is the second year of the partnership on the programme titled Girls Empowered for Motherhood and Success (GEMS), that reaches out the assist young women at women's centres across the island. The course will be facilitated over seven weeks by Scotia Volunteers.

This year the number of participants has moved up from the 240 girls in 2015, as the Women's Center Foundation has opened access to the course to girls at 14 of their 16 centres. The four additional centres are located in Denbigh, Highgate, Duncans and Santa Cruz.

In this seven-week programme titled JA Career Success, the adolescents will be trained in: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, work priories and soft skills. Fourteen sessions are being facilitated weekly by 150 ScotiaVolunteers in parishes across the island, who themselves were trained for this exercise. The sessions will conclude with a conference on International Women's Day, March 8