What is NiNa?

The NiNa Young Women’s Leadership Programme (Nina) provides skills and tools to build self-value in young women within the state care system and are transitioning out into the “real world” at the age of 18. For over eight years, the NiNa Young Women’s Leadership Programme has supported young ladies from various State Care Facilities

Leadership | Www.ninaleaders.com

NiNa goals

NiNa seeks to create a cadre of young female leaders in the Caribbean through training in life skills, leadership, self belief and entrepreneurship.

NiNa activities

NiNa has several activities under four streams of work –

(1) NiNa Secondary School Programme,

(2) NiNa Choices Programme

(3) NiNa Transition Programme

(4) NiNa Consultancy

Reflections - Young Ladies Transitioning from State Care in Trinidad and Tobago

The Transition Programme aims to provide resource networks, safe physical and psychological spaces, personal healing, growth and development and will facilitate education for young women ageing out of state care. The likelihood of these women disappearing, becoming statistics or perpetuating the cycles of abuse and neglect that they were exposed too is high. The aim is to support the transition.

Working hand in hand ,The NiNa Programme, through its work with young ladies within care homes of the State, is determined to ensure that Trinidad and Tobago have a cadre of young women who can take up the mantle of leadership, and empowered citizens to continue on the legacy left by our past leaders to make our country a better one that we found it. We continue to expand by including other students from schools such as the Belmont Secondary and Bishop Anstey and Trinity East and include mentors from university and other tertiary institutions.

NiNa Features on the Spotlight Initiative. The Spotlight Initiative is a global, multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030.

It takes a village…The Transition Programme will provide resource networks, safe physical and psychological spaces, personal healing, growth and development and will facilitate education for young women aging out of state care. The likelihood of these women disappearing, becoming statistics or perpetuating the cycles of abuse and neglect that they were exposed too is high. The aim is to support the transition.

Bodacious Girls is hosted by the NiNa Young Woman's Leadership Programme, an educational programme that works to empower girls to learn how to create their own businesses.

For the past two years they’ve had a mentorship camp for 12 girls from St Jude’s Home. This is a seven-day residential programme followed by a monthly mentorship programme in which the girls and mentors meet for activities such as motivational discussions, farm visits, stilt-walking and lunch outings.

“Nina creates young women who are resilient, confident, holistic individuals with a strong sense of self, willing to lead, love and serve. We focus on entrepreneurship as an empowerment tool to build skills, courage, persistence, risk taking and an entrepreneurial mind-set. We empower young women who were in the care system to emerge with leadership qualities. We are a self-sustainable programme which can provide training and employment for young ladies in transition out of the care system,” Dardaine-Edwards said.