# Evolution of Yielding Accomplished African Women
Somewhere on the shores of Cape Coast Castle in Ghana (a West African country) came a vision. This vision came with a purpose and that purpose birthed Yielding Accomplished African Women (YaaW). YaaW came to take the reins in ensuring that African women around the world are empowered to reach into the depths of themselves and bring out their missing links. What started out in Ghana, spread wildly amongst other African countries like a bush fire fed with gasoline.
# From a Spark to Flames
For women to be empowered to do more and impact the world, the problem of bridging the gender inequality gap in the areas of finance and technology had to be addressed. After several trains of thoughts on how best to solve this problem, then came the Eureka moment. This moment manifested in the form of West Africa’s first Accelerator Program dubbed ‘Our Girls, Our Future’ (OGOF).
In YaaW, we hold in esteem the words ‘No girl is to be left behind.’ These words speak volumes about ensuring the preservation and nurturing of the future of African women and OGOF seeks to do exactly this. What started out with 10 ladies in 2018 has skyrocketed exponentially through the years.
# Core of the OGOF program
As an intensive 12-week accelerator program from August through to October, this year's OGOF program embraced students and graduates alike from the African diaspora. Students were trained in two tracks, finance and technology tracks. The technology track featured courses from Educative.io in Web development, Software Engineering and Machine Learning with Machine Learning being the first of its kind since the inception of the program in 2018. The finance track had its courses taken from the Corporate Finance Institute.
I know, 12 weeks is such a long time, and you're wondering how they stayed for a 12-week program virtually. Well, the trick was to give participants hands-on information through interactive sessions to put them on a pedestal career-wise. Yielding Accomplished African Women as an organization believes in the holistic development of ladies in the OGOF program so aside from the coursework, ladies were taken through other sessions for their total build-up. These sessions consisted of Community Events Week, Women Empowerment Week, First Look Program and the Professional Development Week.
# You Invest, We Grow
Following the quote by Benjamin Franklin, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”, these ladies took a leap of faith to invest in themselves and are currently enjoying the returns of their investment. As fire is accompanied by smoke, the ladies are ready to spread out their wings and impact the world after this 12-week intensive program.
‘Congratulations!’ has been on the social media pages of almost every YaaW member over the past weekend as OGOF21’ participants graduated from the program and are now fully-fledged YaaW alumni. The girls had the privilege of having speakers like Latanya Mapp Frett, Rev. Dee Nyarko Appiah and Diana Wilson grace the occasion.
# Wait, It’s Not Over
Book your seats next week as we take you on an inside look into the OGOF21’ sessions and share inspiring testimonials from our graduates.